


Vis Insita

by Caleb Nova (Caleb_Nova)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Relationship, Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Humor, Military, Romance, Science Fiction, Vis Insita
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 46
Words: 409,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9889649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caleb_Nova/pseuds/Caleb%20Nova
Summary: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed. The seventh year sequel to That Terrifying Momentum.





	1. And This Long Wake of Phosphor…

**Prologue**

**And This Long Wake of Phosphor…**  

\--- 

_And this long wake of phosphor,  
_ _iridescent  
_ _Furrow of all our travel — trailed derision!  
_ _Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spell  
_ _Incites a yell. Slid on that backward vision  
_ _The mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell._

                             —Hart Crane (1899—1932), _Southern Cross*_

\---

 **(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)**  

Ginny,

            You know I'm not that great at writing letters but I'm giving it a go. I reckoned if you didn't hear from me at some point I'd be in trouble. The thing is I haven't written so far because I'm not sure what to say. Or I'm not sure what to say that won't make you hacked at me.

            I don't want you to come with me. Sorry, but that's the truth. The Dursleys have been gone a lot the last few days and I've been sitting here and it looks like a bad idea. How are we going to get you away from The Burrow? Your mum will kill me, you know.

            What really worries me is the Ministry. You'll still be under age and if you use any magic then they'll find us. I can't think of any way around that and yes I have tried, I'm not just using excuses. There's no way I'll let you come if you can't use magic to defend yourself.

            So I've torn this letter up about five times now and started over. This is the best version, I think. I don't know. I'm not good at writing letters. I just want to know that you're okay and that you don't want to hurt me for changing my mind again.

Harry

\---

**(a letter written on blank white stationary)**

Dear Harry,

            You're a prat. I'm only slightly angry with you. You aren't good at writing letters, but at least you tried.

            As for everything else — stop it, Harry. You're thinking too much. You should never be alone, you know that? You're terrible at it! I leave you to your own devices for a few weeks and you fall apart. I want you to get in touch with Scott and tell him to bring you to The Burrow right away. Full stop. Get out of that awful house and come see me. We'll work this out. I'll wager Hermione can think of something for the Ministry problem. Or we can tell Scott to just burn the place down.

Love,

Ginny

\---

**(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)**

Ginny,

            Please don't tell Scott to burn down the Ministry. He might actually do it and we've got enough problems. I don't know how to get in touch with him. He just shows up sometimes. I don't think he would take me to your place. He seems happy enough to leave me here, maybe because of the protections. Makes his job easier, probably.

            Last time I saw him he said that Lila was watching out for you and everyone else at the Burrow. If anything should happen, make sure you stick close to her. I told Scott to stay near you as well, but I'm not sure he listened. He usually likes to keep us all in one place. If he hasn't tried to move us he must have some sort of reason.

            I said before I wasn't good at writing letters. Well, I'm really really not good at writing letters that are personal. But I miss you. And I still don't see how this is going to work but I hope it does.

            Guess that wasn't very romantic. I'm just rubbish at this.

Harry

\---

 **(a note scrawled on the back of a flyer for a lawn service)**  

 

Hey dude

Lil said Ginny was griping

about me seeing you?

For something?

I don't know

Just call me

Even you magic Neanderthals

gotta know how to use a phone

020 7946 0998  

\---

 **(a letter written on heavy parchment)**

 

Harry,

            Hey, mate. Thought it was about time I write you since it's been a bit. I've been writing Hermione non-stop though, for a change. I think she likes it. Hard to tell just reading about her day, maybe she's sick of all the letters. You don't think Hermione would ever get tired of letters do you? Maybe I should stop.

            Anyway I wanted to ask you something. I saw you'd been writing Ginny. Which is fine, that's nice that you can still be friends and all. But I thought there was something else going on? Gin seems kind of excited when she's writing you. So really what I'm wondering is if the two of you got back together. That's why I wrote.

Write back soon,

Ron

\---

**(a phone conversation)**

(Ringing)

SCOTT: 'Yello!

HARRY: Hello? Scott?

SCOTT: Oh, hey, Harry. Thought I might hear from you.

HARRY: Well, you did give me your number. How does that work, though, did you just buy a—

SCOTT: Uh, Harry, if we're going to continue this conversation it would be helpful if you'd take the phone out of your ass.

HARRY: Sorry. Sorry, I… (embarrassed silence) God, I don't remember the last time I used a phone. I was putting it too close to my mouth. At least I'm not shouting, some wizards will do that.

SCOTT: Good thing you're no ordinary wizard. The Chosen One doesn't need to shout.

HARRY: (sigh) Right. Like I was saying, did you buy a phone in London?

SCOTT: This is a recent setup. Standard, but recent. This number actually just routes to my com.

HARRY: Okay.

SCOTT: …So did you call for any particular reason, or is this a cry for help?

HARRY: That thing with Lila and Ginny. Ginny wants you to take me to The Burrow as soon as you can.

SCOTT: Why? You changing your mind already?

HARRY: I change my mind about it every other minute. That, and she doesn't like me being alone out here.

SCOTT: Tough noogies. Not much longer to go anyway, you'll be there soon enough.

HARRY: I reckoned you'd say that. That's what I told her.

SCOTT: Well, aren't I predictable. (a loud bang, muffled shouting in the distance) Hey, look at that, I gotta go. Keep it real, H.

(dial tone)

HARRY: Bye…

\--- 

 **(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)**

Ron,

            I know this isn't what you want to hear but the thing I have with Ginny is complicated. I'll just be honest. She wants to come with us. I know that isn't a good idea, but you need to talk to Scott about it more than me. He said some things that

            I don't know how to finish this. I'm sort of convinced that leaving her behind is pointless, but then I'm also not because I know that it will be dangerous. I can't say more in a letter. Sorry.

Harry

\---

 **(a letter written on blank white stationary)**

           

            Bloody hell, Harry! I can't believe you told Ron and not in person. He exploded today, no joke, I thought for sure Mum would find out about the whole thing. What were you thinking? You know he's all worried that you're just messing me about. It's unbearable here right now, thanks to you.

            Even Dad wants to know why we're fighting and what am I going to say? Couldn't you just keep it to yourself for a few more weeks? Is that really so hard?!

            You're such a total prat, Harry. Lucky I like you so much.

Ginny

\--- 

**(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)**

 

Ginny,

            I'm sorry. I really am. I just couldn't lie to him. I thought about it. He was going to find out anyway, you know that. He hasn't written back to me. I'm sure that's not a good sign.

            I'm back to being glad you'll be with me. I feel like if I could just be with you we could work this out.

            I reckon this will last until tomorrow morning, then I'll want to lock you away again.

Harry

\--- 

 **(a letter written on personalized pale lavender stationary)**

 

Dear Harry,

            I understand you've made quite a mess recently. Ron has been writing me (for once!) and raised a fuss about you and Ginny. I suppose you've worked things out with her, at least for the most part.

            I really can't imagine why you told Ron without doing so in person, but what's done is done. I'll do my best to calm him, though when it comes to Ginny you know how he can be. What you really need is for Scott to talk to him. That way, even if Ron tries to hit Scott, we all know he had it coming anyway (that was a joke).

            Speaking of which, has Scott said anything about watching me? I could have sworn I saw a blond man across the street last Thursday. He was leaning against a car. I went to the front walk, but by then he was gone. There wasn't exactly a crowd on the street that evening, so I thought it might be him.

            I know you're impatient and feeling cooped up at the Dursleys', but it won't be much longer until the wedding. Try to get some rest, Harry — _real_ rest, not the tossing and turning you call rest when you're worried about something. I know you haven't been sleeping well, because I know you.

Affectionately,

Hermione

\--- 

 **(a phone conversation)**

 

(Ringing)

SCOTT: This had better be Harry Potter.

HARRY: It is me. Why would it be someone else?

SCOTT: Just getting ready to threaten someone, if need be. You never know. Somebody could have broken into your house or stolen this number from you.

HARRY: And you would have done what, exactly?

SCOTT: I would have told them that I'd rip their lower intestines out through their urethra unless they let you go immediately.

HARRY: Ugh. Can that actually be done?

SCOTT: No. But it would be both painful and fatal when I tried.

HARRY: Uh, anyway… Hermione wrote me. Were you outside of her house last Thursday?

SCOTT: Yep.

HARRY: (relieved sigh) Okay, good. I was worried that if it wasn't you, maybe someone else was looking for her.

SCOTT: They'd better not. I wouldn't like that at all.

HARRY: Me, neither. So everything has been okay?

SCOTT: Ron and Ginny are safe in The Burrow, Lila is still spending a lot of time there. Most of her time, actually. Hermione has been fine at her house, you've been okay at yours so far. Neville is holed up in his not-so-humble abode, and there's so much magic around there I can't get too close to it, I'm worried I might break something. Luna… Luna is okay for now. I caught a Death Eater sniffing around her place.

HARRY: What?! Already? Why her, she can't possibly be considered such a threat—

SCOTT: Relax, I took care of it.

HARRY: You can't be everywhere at once. Why don't you let me go and stay with her for a while, just until we can all get together.

SCOTT: No. You're staying right where you are.

HARRY: Luna is in danger, I can't just sit here on my arse!

SCOTT: You can and you will. I told you, I took care of it.

HARRY: Took care of it _how?_

SCOTT: I told Neville about it.

HARRY: You… Ah. I see. Sometimes I forget how sneaky you are.

SCOTT: No, you don't. Luna is now enjoying an indefinite stay in Neville's hospitality.

HARRY: I'm surprised he could convince his grandmum.

SCOTT: I don't know if he bothered to ask. So is there anything else, or were you just checking in?

HARRY: I — er — might have told Ron about me and Ginny. With a letter.

SCOTT: I know. Lila is currently having a high old time watching the two of them quietly seethe at each other.

HARRY: He hasn't written me back.

SCOTT: Probably saving his fingers for punching.

HARRY: …Er — about that. Hermione thought it might be best if you talked to him.

SCOTT: Hah! Yeah, I bet she did.

HARRY: Would you? I think he'll listen to you if you explain everything. Tell him what you told me.

SCOTT: And save you from being assaulted?

HARRY: Come on. You wouldn't want your Priority One to take a beating, would you?

SCOTT: (laughter) You picked that up quick. I'll make a Primare out of you yet!

HARRY: So that's a yes?

SCOTT: That's a maybe. I'll look into it. Talk to you later.

HARRY: All right. Later, then.

\--- 

**(a letter written on heavy parchment)**

            Just because I'm writing doesn't mean I'm not still bloody angry about the whole thing. But I guess I'm not blaming you as much. As much! Ginny is giving me the cold shoulder like you wouldn't believe, it's effing freezing in here. I know how she gets when she wants something. I thought you already settled things.

            Lila had a few words with me. She and Ginny are best mates now, apparently, who knew. So I've got two narky girls in the house, that's brilliant. You don't think if we make Ginny stay at The Burrow, that Lila will take her along anyway? Fucking hell. I know Gin is good in a fight, but my mum will kill me. It'll be on my head, somehow.

            Scott sent me a letter, sort of. Lila showed it to me on that little Muggle wireless of hers and says he wants to talk. I don't know what he told you, but it'd have to be bloody spectacular to work on me.

Ron

\--- 

**(a note scribbled on the personal ads page of the morning paper)**

Talked to Ron

He wasn't feeling reasonable, but

we worked it out

Truth hurts

Keep an ear out for the phone

Lila wants to talk to you

 

S.K.

 

 

\--- 

**(a phone conversation)**

(Ringing)

HARRY: —It really is for me! Yes, I get calls too. At least I think — hello?

LILA: Is there a problem?

HARRY: This is Lila, right?

LILA: Right.

HARRY: (distantly) I told you it was for me! This doesn't have anything to do with you—

(DISTORTED SHOUTING): —my telephone, boy, you'd better believe it's my business—

HARRY: Not this time. Just back off, all of you! Lila? You still there?

LILA: Present. Obviously there's some issue with my calling, so I'll make this short. Ginny wants to see you as soon as possible.

HARRY: Um… I don't know how I'd manage that.

LILA: I'll be managing it for you. Be at your window tomorrow night at ten. Okay?

HARRY: Er, yeah… Yeah, I'll be ready.

LILA: Good. See you then.

(Click)

\--- 

**(a letter written on blank white stationary)**

            Thought I wouldn't go through with it, I'll bet. I won't say where we're meeting over the post, but it's neutral ground. Lila handled everything very nicely. I think she's better at this Prime stuff than Scott is.

            I'll see you soon, Harry. And don't start worrying.

Gin

***---~**~---***

When ten o' clock came around, Harry was sitting on his bed with his hands clasped nervously in front of him. Despite Ginny's parting words, he had, in fact, been worrying. What was he going to say to her? After all the times he'd changed his mind on the issue of her accompanying him on his mad quest, no doubt she was ready to slap him senseless.

It didn't help that the weeks of separation left him craving her company. She wanted to talk (or fight), and all he wanted to do was snog.

“Fuck,” he muttered. It helped a little.

Lila was coming, and Ginny was waiting. Harry didn't know how to deal with Lila, which was mostly why he was keenly missing Scott's presence. Harry's interactions with her had been limited, at best. Her demeanour had always given him the impression that she didn't much care for him. He couldn't think of anything he had done to make her feel that way…

Well, except becoming the Chosen One and getting her assigned to his hopeless cause.

Did she resent him for that? Harry felt a bit angry at the possibility. It wasn't _his_ fault she was assigned to this mess of a mission. He hadn't asked for her, or Scott's, help. He hadn't exactly _refused_ it, but…

He was uptight and jumping to conclusions. Lila had been steadfast in her protection of Harry's friends during the attack, and hadn't flinched from the fighting or her duty. Scott might have seemed more dedicated to the task at hand in comparison, but he had also been a very visible presence for over a year, now. Harry hadn't seen much of the other sibling. He supposed her conduct that night at Hogwarts was proof enough of her ability. And, besides, Ginny was apparently on good terms with Lila, so that was important to keep in mind.

Harry didn't know how he'd be hailed, but he half-expected another rock pinging against his windowpane. Instead, a glaring beam of light swiftly appeared, traced its way across the ceiling, and then vanished again. It repeated this motion twice more before Harry made his way over and opened the window.

Below on the grass stood Lila, holding a torch in her hand as she flicked the switch on and off. When Harry stuck his head out, she tucked the light into one of her jacket pockets and motioned for him to descend. Obviously, she had the same faith in Harry's climbing abilities that her brother did.

Once again, Harry carefully lowered himself out the window and dropped the remaining distance. In a repeat of the last occasion, Lila caught him just as Scott had. The embarrassing key difference was that Scott didn't possess a large (and firm, a distant and very male portion of Harry's mind assessed) pair of breasts for Harry to be squashed against as he was prevented from injuring himself. Lila didn't comment, letting go of him without a hint of awkwardness, and Harry found himself thankful that the Kharan siblings weren't entirely similar.

There was a car parked across the street. Lila lead him to it in silence, sliding into the driver's seat whilst Harry sat in the passenger side. It took him a moment to remember how to buckle his seatbelt, fumbling with the straps and feeling more chagrined by the second. Lila's supposed opinion of him wasn't going to improve if he couldn't even ride in a car correctly.

But Lila said nothing, starting the car and driving down the street without so much as a glance in Harry's direction. Her silence didn't invite conversation. Despite his feelings of awkwardness, Harry chose to stare out the window rather than find something pleasant to say. It was obvious that Lila wasn't interested in talking.

As they drove, the Muggle world flashed by in patches of illumination: street lamps and houses, shops and petrol stations. A suburb dissolved into a field, which in turn grew back into a car park. With a growing sense of displacement, Harry realised that the normalcy outside the window seemed more alien than wands and wizards. When was the last time he had gone for a car ride of any distance, one that didn't involve flying? Nobody in the buildings flashing by knew that their future was in doubt. He had only been in the car for ten minutes, and already the wizarding world seemed small.

Scott had been right. It would be easy to get lost out there, and disappear.

“I'm glad Scott isn't here,” Lila commented.

She had been quiet for so long that Harry actually jumped when she spoke. “Oh?” he said after he caught his breath. “Why's that?”

“He'd be making some stupid comments about the locale,” she huffed, sounding irritated even though Scott wasn't present to make said comments. “Every time we're in the English countryside, it's _Straw Dogs_ , and every time we're in the American south, it's _Deliverance_. He watches too many movies.”

Harry felt that this conversation was only confirming his estrangement from his Muggle roots. “That sounds like him,” he said, deciding that was a neutral response.

“Either that, or he'd want to listen to _Village Green Preservation Society_ over and over again. Which is fine, for the first couple plays. I like it. But he never gets tired of it. It's like he thinks his life needs a soundtrack.”

That was a very odd description of Scott, and yet, somehow it fit him perfectly. “I think sometimes he's waiting for the band to strike up, when he makes a big entrance or something.”

Lila smiled. “Hah! Yeah, he wishes.”

Harry leaned back in his seat, feeling more relaxed. Maybe Lila _wasn't_ harbouring a deep dislike for him. “So, um, where are we going?”

“My apartment. Ginny is already there, though I'm sure that doesn't make you feel any better. She didn't look violent when I left.”

Harry winced. Ginny had plenty of time to get violent before he arrived. “All right…”

“This is a one time thing. We found an opportunity and we took it, but just because the Death Eaters aren't looking for a car doesn't mean they won't be in the future,” Lila warned.

Harry glanced back outside, peering upward into the overcast sky reflexively. Even if there was someone on a broom up there, there was little chance he could spot them. “I don't think they know exactly where I'm staying.”

Lila nodded. “If they did, we'd have already run into them. But just in case, Scott is making some noise to keep them occupied.”

That brought Harry's head snapping back around. “What? What is he doing now?”

“We found a Death Eater supply cache in a building over in Knockturn. Well, Scott found it. I don't think he was actually looking for it, but he's been following a few Death Eaters around while you Primes have been holed up.” Lila checked the clock on the dashboard. “About… sixteen minutes ago, he set fire to the place.”

Harry frowned. “Why would they have a supply room? They can keep their things wherever they want by now, probably.”

“Maybe 'supply cache' isn't the right term,” Lila amended. “There was some stuff in there, mostly robes and masks, but it was also a meeting area. A recruitment centre, we think.”

“They'll just move somewhere else,” Harry muttered. A familiar sense of hopelessness tugged at his heart. Wizarding Britain was being poisoned from within, and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it.

Lila merely shrugged. “It will get their attention for the night, and that's all we needed.”

Maybe every victory was temporary, Harry mused, turning away from Lila and staring out the glass. They all had been so far. Every year at Hogwarts had brought another minor success, and it had never done anything but delay the inevitable. Voldemort had shrugged off his defeats and was stronger than ever.

As the dim outlines of trees flashed past outside, Harry felt like he was standing still. Even if he avoided death or capture and successfully sought out the Horcruxes, doing so would take all of his time and energy. Meanwhile, the rest of the wizarding world would be swallowed by the dark, piece by piece. What was the point of killing Riddle if, at that end, there was nothing left to save?

“I see what she meant,” Lila interjected into the silence, making Harry jump again.

“Huh? What who meant?”

“Ginny. She told me you shouldn't be allowed to think alone,” Lila said wryly.

Harry didn't reply, crossing his arms in a disgruntled fashion. Whatever Ginny thought, she didn't have to say that sort of thing to Lila, of all people.

Lila looked over at him with an amused expression. “I would say the same thing about Scott, personally. I understand where she's coming from.”

“Scott?” Harry scoffed. “He's too spastic to brood, or whatever it is you think I'm doing.”

“Only because the Scott you know isn't the one _I_ know,” Lila told him with a hint of what he thought was smugness. “You know proto-Scott. Scott Junior. Remember, he grew up, same as the rest of us. He just aged down for your convenience.”

“Yeah, I know, but he still has all his memories, he's still an adult, just not… physically.”

“But it's not the same. You'll see.”

It was troubling to think that Harry's new found friend and ally might not be the same person anymore. And he didn't like the way that Lila seemed to be rubbing it in. “Whatever,” he grumbled.

Lila rolled her eyes. “Scott isn't schizophrenic. He'll be different, but not _that_ much. If I were you, right now I'd be more worried about Ginny.”

That excellent point brought Harry up short. His meeting with Ginny was fast approaching and he didn't know if she wanted to smack or snog him. With any luck, she'd snog him first and then smack him after, when he'd be feeling no pain.

Who was he kidding? Ginny had a good arm.

Harry passed the rest of the trip in a pensive silence. Lila must have found that amusing, if her expression was anything to go by. Harry still wasn't sure where things stood with her. He wasn't certain that she didn't like him, but now he wasn't sure that he liked _her_.

After some time, the surrounding area began to look a little familiar. Harry thought he might have glimpsed parts of it from the air whilst playing Quidditch in the Weasley's garden. When they entered the town, he recognised most of it, having passed through before.

He did not, however, recognise the squat, two-storey building they arrived at. Lila drove the car around to an alley, and parked in a narrow space that seemed designed for a slightly smaller vehicle. A worn brick staircase climbed the back of the structure. Lila ascended it with Harry behind her, pausing to use a key at the door.

Inside, a small window overlooked the street to Harry's left; to his right, a blank hallway stretched out, punctuated by doors along the left hand side. Lila led him to the nearest one, marked number three.

“If you're going to fight, keep it down,” Lila warned Harry as she inserted her key into the lock. “I share a wall and a floor with some people who are probably asleep by now.”

When he entered the flat, Harry noticed the layout only peripherally; two bedrooms, a toilet and a kitchen attached to the sitting room. The fact that Ginny occupied a chair opposite of the door demanded the majority of his attention. She was wearing jeans that accentuated her slim form, coupled with a yellow, thin-strapped top with a hem about an inch too short to conceal a tantalizing strip of pale skin. After weeks apart, she seemed more stunning than ever.

Harry didn't want to fight. He wanted Lila to leave so he could get Ginny onto that sofa with him.

“Hey, Gin,” he managed to get out, making a feeble attempt to keep his eyes on her face.

“Quit staring at my tits, Harry,” Ginny said without much ire. “We need to talk. _Again_.”

Lila brushed past him while he internally fumbled for a response. “I've been told that tits are for staring at, among other things,” she noted. “But there's a time and a place. Like I said, no shouting. I mean it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry grated out. He watched with relief as Lila disappeared into one of the bedrooms and shut the door. He was already tired of her intercession in what he thought was a private matter, and the last thing he wanted was to suffer her snarky asides while he talked to and\or snogged his girlfriend.

With Lila out of the way, he looked back over at Ginny, only to see her eyes narrowing. “You'd better not have been staring at _her_ tits,” she said, crossing her arms.

“What? No!” Harry said, aghast. Lila's chest was undoubtedly impressive, but not even close to the first thing Harry was thinking about whilst dealing with her.

“And why not? I thought blokes went for that sort of thing, the bigger the better and all that.”

He couldn't win. He couldn't— “What the— I— No! That's not even always true, you… You're taking the piss, aren't you.”

Ginny laughed, muffling it with her hands. Harry just gaped back at her, dumbfounded. She was jiggling a little as her shoulders heaved, and he was rapidly developing a problem that he'd need one of the many pillows lying about to hide.

“I'm sorry, Harry, but you should have seen the look on your face when you came in,” Ginny chortled. “You didn't know whether you wanted to hide or snog!”

He knew which one he wanted to do _now_. “It was all worth it just to hear you say 'tits',” he told her (and it sounded like a joke, but it wasn't, really).

Ginny moved over to the sofa and patted the seat next to her. “Come on, sit down. If you're lucky, maybe I'll say tits again.”

No, if he was lucky he'd get to _see_ some tits, not just hear about them. But luck had never been one of Harry's primary attributes, and he reckoned whatever good fortune he had was spent. Ginny wasn't angry, and that was about as lucky as he could see himself being.

He slumped onto the sofa and stared straight ahead at the blank television, too nervous to meet Ginny's eyes. “…So what did you want to talk about?”

“Like you don't know,” Ginny scoffed. “Did you change your mind again on the ride over? Or are you waiting for my next letter?”

“I was waiting for your next letter,” Harry replied in a monotone.

Ginny sighed. “And I suppose you've been too busy worrying about that to actually think of how we can make this work.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I've been talking to Lila—” Ginny began, and Harry immediately knew that he wasn't going to like any sentence that started that way, “—and she says that me being under-age shouldn't be a problem. There's a spell attached to me, she just has to get rid of it.”

“All right. Does she also have a fantastic plan to stop your mum from killing me?”

Ginny shifted a bit in her seat. “We weren't going to _tell_ her before we leave, right?”

That was the worst idea Harry had heard in awhile. “No!”

“Exactly. We'll just skip out at the first opportunity and take care of those Horcruxes.” Ginny reached over and took Harry's hand, gripping it firmly.

She made it sound so easy, but Harry was a long way from sharing her confidence. Still, she was holding his hand and wasn't angry about his letters, so he said nothing and leaned into her slightly. There was no point in disagreeing and possibly starting a real row.

Without warning, Ginny released Harry's hand and turned over to straddle his lap. This put her breasts at eye level (as well as putting a few other things in close proximity) and it took a great deal of willpower for Harry to look up and meet her eyes whilst she moved her hands to the back of his neck.

“You'll be glad I'm there when it comes down to it. I know you're not happy now, but you'll see,” Ginny murmured, pressing herself closer to Harry. “There _are_ benefits to having me around, you know.”

“I can think of a few,” Harry said in a low voice, moving his thumbs to stroke her waist where he held it.

Ginny leaned in for a kiss that wiped every doubting thought from Harry's mind. It started off innocent enough, but when she opened her mouth and squeezed herself against him in an almost desperate manner, things became very interesting. Harry was suddenly very conscious of the fact that this was about as far as they'd ever taken things, and Lila was right in the next room.

Even as he pulled his lips from Ginny's and gently pushed her away, he was already regretting it. But Scott's sofa was not the ideal place to try the sorts of things he _really_ wanted to try with her.

“Too fast?” Ginny asked. She was breathing hard and eyeing Harry's mouth hungrily.

“No, just about perfect,” Harry told her. “But, you know, Lila is right over there…”

“Bugger her,” Ginny said tersely, moving in closer again.

“I heard that!” Lila's muffled voice said from behind the door. “No sex on my couch! I want to keep it clean!”

Ginny sighed, slumping downward and resting her head on Harry's shoulder. “I bet if it were Scott, he wouldn't care if we had sex on his couch,” she murmured humorously.

“If it were Scott, he might be giving us advice,” Harry managed to choke out. Ginny's clear implication that she wouldn't mind having sex with him left his tongue uncooperative and his pants even tighter than before. He really hoped she wouldn't move a great deal while she was positioned on his lap. He was dangerously close to embarrassing himself.

Ginny raised her head to look him in the eye. “So, are we good now? No more doubts?”

Harry dropped his chin and gazed at that delicious strip of skin near her navel. “Like I've ever been sure about anything,” he muttered.

“But _more_ sure, I hope. I know this is hard. I don't always understand why, but I'm trying. You can't do this alone. And I _want_ to be with you.” She cupped the back of his head and kissed him, hard and possessive. “Please let me help.”

“Okay, Ginny. I… Okay.”

She placed her head back against his shoulder, holding him close. “You didn't really want to leave me, did you?”

“No, never,” Harry said honestly. “I just thought I didn't have a choice.”

“You always have choices, Harry,” Ginny said. “But you need help to see them.”

Harry snorted in amusement. “That sounds like what Scott's been telling me.”

“Lila told me that, actually.” Ginny ran her fingers through his hair, and then tilted her head, bringing their lips near enough to feel the warmth. “She didn't say anything about _this_ , though.”

Harry lost himself in her lips, tongue and scent, and for that moment he didn't doubt a thing.

 

***---~**~---*** 

**(a letter jotted on the back of a blank envelope)**

Had fun at your reunion?

I heard you enjoyed yourself

very much

remind me not to sit on that couch

anymore.

Fuck your balls

Scott

 

\--- 

**(a letter written on personalized pale lavender stationary)**

Dear Harry,

            Ginny wrote me a lengthy letter detailing your meeting with her. I'm glad that you've decided (again) to see reason, though I admit I'm a bit worried as to how long it will last. I know Ginny had you convinced at the time, but, as we both know, you aren't very reliable when it comes to this particular.

            I've had some doubts (never about my own involvement, Harry!) the same as you, but I do realise that it's not as personal. Still, during our current separation I've given it a lot of thought, and, much as it pains me to put it in writing, I think Scott is correct. Past evidence points to Ginny being as inextricable from this mess as the rest of us. And yes, Harry, we are just as involved as you! Don't you dare mentally stagger off into another bout of solitary despair. You're stuck with us, like it or not. I'd prefer that you like it, but I know you too well.

            Please don't distance yourself now. It's so very important that we collaborate in this. I really can't stress that enough. And if, as things may be now, you feel more inclined to listen to Scott, then I know he would tell you the same thing.

Wishing we could talk in person,

Hermione

\--- 

**(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)**

Hermione,

            I couldn't think of any good way to respond to your last letter which is why this is so late. I felt guilty. I still do. And not about the whole thing with Ginny, I mean that's still a problem I can't get over it just like that. But that you— I would have made you think that your advice doesn't mean anything or that Scott is my only

            God I can't do this in writing. I'm not a writer. Scott is my friend, and I think he is yours too, but he wasn't there to fight a troll with us. He wasn't there at the Department or to help Sirius or at any of the million times that you were there for me like you always have been. At all the important parts of my life the worst and the best and come on, Hermione. You and Ron were the first real friends I ever had.

            I just hate this thought that maybe I made you feel like what you had to say was second to Scott. Maybe when he's talking about guns. But you know magic and you know me and

            Writing this all down has made me realise how stupid I was to even consider trying this alone. Sorry. When you're putting together all the plans that will actually get us somewhere you can laugh about how daft I am. And then Ron can punch me again.

Harry

P.S. How detailed was Ginny's letter?

 

\--- 

**(a letter written on heavy parchment)**

            Hermione says that Ginny convinced you all over again that taking her was a good idea. Is it just me or are all the women against us? I'm not mad at you anymore, Harry. I think us blokes need to stick together.

            Fred and George were over here a couple days ago, talking about moving you to a safer place. I didn't catch the details. You know those gits, they won't tell me anything.

            Anyway, taking Ginny is still a bad idea but this whole bloody thing is a bad idea. Nobody's going to be safe anywhere, not anymore. Guess we have to accept that. It doesn't make me a poof to be scared right? Too fucking right I'm scared. Bloody hell.

            Sod it. Almost time to get on with it. I bet Hermione will know what to do.

Ron

  

\--- 

**(a letter written on blank white stationary)**

Harry,

            It will be your birthday before too long. I know I told you not to worry earlier, but I guess I am now. You have to promise me you'll be careful.

            And for God's sake, don't change your mind about me again. I'll be very cross with you.

Love,

Ginny

***---~**~---*** 

*** _Southern Cross_ was written by the American poet Hart Crane, and is not of my invention. This initial quote selection will be, from this point forward, the sole exception. The poems and quotes prefacing all subsequent chapters are entirely fictional, and are not excerpted from the works of any actual poets or authors.**


	2. Goodbye, Arcadia Part I

**2**

**Goodbye, Arcadia**

**Part I**

**\---**

_“Primes may be required to leave behind their familiar spaces,_  
_but they should not be **expected** to. Understanding the difficulties_  
_inherent in new and almost certainly dangerous undertakings_  
_is an important part of building a solid working relationship_  
_with your Primes. The demands of the shape can be both arduous_  
_and frightening. A good integrationist takes this into account,_  
_and utilizes empathy as much as any other tool at their disposal._  
_True rapport is emotional, not merely circumstantial.”_

                        —The Guiding Light: An Integrationist's Guide to Understanding Primes, Chapter VI: Being Kind

\--- 

Harry was angry. That was not an uncommon state for him (especially recently), but rarely did he try so hard to keep it under control.

It was all related to how tired he was. He hadn't been sleeping well, not at all, and the fatigue made his temper short. Staying at the Dursleys' for the past weeks had been necessary, but entirely undesirable. He was so close to leaving for good, and that moment couldn't come soon enough.

And now Uncle Vernon was looking to delay it yet again. Harry didn't care how it happened, he just wanted the Dursleys to go hide, out of the house, and out of his way. He couldn't run off to fight Voldemort whilst they were easy targets; his conscience wouldn't stretch that far. Soon the protections around Privet Drive would be finished, and he didn't think the Death Eaters would have any problem killing some of his Muggle relatives, no matter how incidental they were.

He was also still unable to perform under-age magic without breaking the law. Going ‘off the grid', as Scott had put it, would be that much more difficult if the Ministry wanted to arrest him yet again. Harry already had plenty of other people lining up to take a shot at him.

So instead of forcibly shoving his relatives out the door with a spell, Harry took another deep breath and tried to think of some way to get Vernon's fat arse out of the house and into the car. The man was currently labouring under the delusion that the protection program Harry had offered was an elaborate ruse to gain ownership of the Dursley house, a concept so stupid that Harry was actually stumped for a response. He would rather sleep on the street than live in that shitehole by choice.

He realised he had actually said that last part out loud when Vernon's face began to turn a rich, furious purple.

“Is there a problem?”

A new voice from the lawn interrupted the proceedings and temporarily curtailed Vernon's rage. Harry stepped forward to peer around Dudley as they all turned to look, but he already knew who it was.

Scott Kharan stood on the garden path wearing a slightly bemused expression. He was also wearing Muggle clothing, and, though his choice of trousers and a long-sleeved button-up shirt seemed slightly odd in the summer heat, he was neither mismatched nor obviously out of place.

Vernon looked suspicious, but didn't react as he would to yet another member of the wizarding society he so loathed. “No, no problem,” he responded gruffly. “Just discussing something with the boy here—”

“Harry, yeah. That's his name — it's Harry.”

Vernon glared. “I beg your pardon?”

“Call him Harry,” Scott said. He moved a few steps forwards, towering over Vernon's stout form.

The implied menace in Scott's stance was enough for Vernon to realise what was going on. He whirled on Harry. “Boy, is this another of your — your—”

“Friends?” Harry suggested.

“Comrades. Compatriots,” Scott added.

“—your _type_ ,” Vernon spat out, like it was something rotten. Petunia grabbed Dudley's shoulders and pulled him further away from Scott.

“Do you see a wand?” Scott asked. He held up his hands for inspection.

That mollified Vernon, if only very slightly. “So he's a normal acquaintance of yours,” he said grudgingly to Harry.

“Not exactly,” Harry snorted.

“Wands are scary things,” Scott said breezily. “You never know what they can do, right? Maybe turn you into a toad or something. Maybe set you on fire.”

“Silence!” Vernon demanded, though he was apparently too afraid to shout in case the neighbours were listening. “I will not have these things discussed in my house!”

“That's fine. Weren't you just leaving?”

“Oh. OH.” Vernon turned once more to Harry. “You've enlisted help, have you? Boy, I'll tell you right now that I will _not_ be forced out of my own home on some ridiculous pretence—”

“That's not what you said yesterday,” Harry interrupted.

“I've changed my mind! And now here's this fellow _also_ trying to get us to leave, and I can put two and two together, yes I can, I see what's happening here!”

“I don't think that you do,” Scott said, his blankly polite expression never wavering. “Harry is telling you that if you don't leave, then Voldemort will torture and kill you, your wife, and your grotesquely deformed son. I'm here to inform you of a more immediate danger.”

“Am I to believe there's _another_ maniac out to get us?” Vernon scoffed.

“Could be. You strike me as a man of many enemies. Are you scared of magic, Vernon?”

“ _Scared?_ ” Vernon indignantly blustered. “Of course not, it's just _unnatural,_ all of you are—”

“Then this must seem mundane.” Scott reached into his buttoned shirt, and when he partially withdrew his hand the hard outline of a pistol was clenched in it. He rested the handgun against his chest, the last half of the barrel still concealed beneath the cloth.

Vernon's face drained of colour so quickly it was as if he had sprung a leak. Petunia let out a high-pitched squeak and scurried backwards until she was pressed against the wall. Dudley just stared, looking more interested than alarmed.

“Don't you know how a gun works?” Scott said mockingly. “Physics, chemistry, pressure and velocity. Nothing magical — what are you afraid of?”

“Petunia,” Vernon croaked, “call the police.”

Scott grinned. “And tell them… what? That a wizard is threatening you?”

“Scott, don't do anything stupid,” Harry warned. He didn't think Scott would actually gun down his relatives, but wouldn't put it past the Kharadjai to put a hole in the furniture or something.

“There's jewellery upstairs in the bedroom!” Aunt Petunia said hysterically.

“I don't want your money,” Scott said contemptuously. “I want you to get out of this house.”

Since nobody had actually been shot just yet, Vernon had regained some small portion of his bravado. “And go where? We can't just drive off aimlessly!”

“There will be some people here soon to take you to a safe place,” Harry reminded him.

“And you're going to go with them,” Scott said with finality.

Vernon literally quivered with rage when given the order. “Or else what?”

“Or else I'll take this lamp,” Scott said calmly, nodding at a table lamp near him, “and I'll beat you with it until you stop moving. Then I'll wrap you in those tacky drapes, and they can _drag_ you to the safe house.”

Vernon's mouth opened and closed several times, outrage vying with terror. But Scott's face was blank and hard, the face of a man eminently capable of carrying out his threats, so Vernon turned around on shaky legs and tottered over to the sofa, where he collapsed and was joined by Petunia. They huddled together, shock writ large on their faces. Harry found dark humour in the fact that, despite all the wizarding going on lately, it was the looming prospect of a Muggle-style beating that cowed them most of all.

Except for Dudley. Harry didn't know if it was stupidity or overconfidence, but Dudley was defiantly sizing Scott up.

“I could thrash you,” Dudley grunted to Scott, flexing his massive arms. “Put the gun away if we're goin' to fight.”

Scott glanced at Dudley, the expression on his face indicating that he didn't think the teen was worth his time. “You don't want that.”

“C'mon then,” Dudley said fiercely. “You scared of me? After all that talk? You're just a bloody coward.”

Harry closed his eyes and placed a hand on his forehead, because he knew what was coming.

In what appeared to be one fluid motion, Scott grabbed Dudley's right arm and bent it the wrong way at the elbow, stretching it back. When Dudley leaned forward slightly with the torque exerted on his shoulder, Scott punched him in the throat. This was followed by a second punch to the chest and a kick into the side of a kneecap.

Dudley hit the floor so hard that the house shook.

“DUDLEY!” Aunt Petunia shrieked.

Vernon was too enraged to be so eloquent. With a wordless roar he sprang from the sofa and began to charge at Scott.

Harry knew he had to put a stop to things before they became even more out of hand. “THAT'S ENOUGH!” he ordered, and drew his wand. He pointed it at Vernon.

Vernon skidded to an ungainly halt, his face a conflicting mess of horror and rage. Petunia was down on her knees, hyperventilating as she worked in vain to roll Dudley onto his back. For his part, Dudley was making a great deal of noise trying to breathe.

“The throat is a good show stopper,” Scott said to Harry, looking unconcerned by the scene he had caused. He gestured at Dudley's twitching form. “See how hard it is for him to inhale? The first punch closes his windpipe; the second hit to the chest knocks out any air he already had. He's close to passing out.”

“Thanks for the lesson, but I could have done without the demonstration,” Harry said, fixing Scott with a hard glare. “Try not to hurt anyone else while you're here, all right?”

Scott raised an eyebrow, looking down at Dudley. “I think the lesson was more for him.”

Harry sighed, releasing some of his anger. Dudley had always been prone to starting fights. It was just his incredibly bad luck to start one with Scott. “They've been hard enough to convince without you maiming Dudley.”

“Sorry. Regardless, we gotta talk.”

“In a minute,” Harry said. “Let's wait for the Order to get here.”

“ _They_ can wait for the Order to get here,” Scott said, jerking his head in the direction of the Dursleys. He grabbed Harry's arm and tugged him towards the stairs. “We have other plans.”

As soon as they were in Harry's room, he closed the door and frowned at Scott. “What other plans?”

Scott flopped down in his usual position at the foot of Harry's bed, but in his adult form he hung off the edge from the waist down. With a groan, he sat back up. “I think the Order will want to move you, too.”

Harry had the same thought, but there was no way to be sure. “They already told me they are. If I leave now I'm not coming back, and that will break the protections.”

“They'll break on your birthday, and that's coming up fast,” Scott pointed out.

“Either way, Voldemort will be waiting for me,” Harry said grimly. “Maybe he doesn't know exactly where I am, but he's had a lot of time to narrow it down.”

“That's right. And if we have to shoot our way out of here, I'd like to be prepared.”

That was a daunting proposition. “We should see what the others have set up first,” Harry suggested.

“That's fine. It'd be better to move under cover of dark. Here, this is what I've done so far…” Scott stood and led Harry over to the window; leaning down, he pointed towards the section of street that was visible from the side yard. “See that car parked across the way? That's mine.” He then pointed downward. “There's a bag of stuff in the bushes, in case we exit this way.”

“I think the Death Eaters won't have much trouble stopping a car,” Harry said.

Scott smirked in response. “Let's see you stop a car while avoiding gunfire. Take it from someone with experience: it's not easy to do _anything_ when there's bullets snapping around your head.”

“They could still overwhelm us. We're bound to be outnumbered.”

“Which is why speed will be key,” Scott said absent-mindedly. He was checking the lock on the window. “A distraction wouldn't hurt, either, if you have any ideas.”

Harry thought about that for a few seconds. “I could send my Patronus out the opposite way. It'll be bright in the dark, and it moves quick.”

“I also have a variety of grenades in that bag,” Scott said. He opened the window and, apparently satisfied that it could be done quickly, shut it again. “We could set traps in case they come into the house. Flashbangs would work well if we get caught in the open. I've even got some CI-WP6 canisters.”

“And those are good?” Harry guessed.

“Combat Incendiary White Phosphorus grenades. They burn hot as hell, but more useful in this scenario is the shit ton of smoke they put out. All I have are WP6s, though. Wish I had some WP0s.” Scott's eyes widened. “Or a WP _double-_ oh… although, come to think of it, anything higher than a WP2 would probably set fire to the neighbourhood.”

“I'd like to avoid that,” Harry said dryly.

“Like I said, all I have are the WP6s. Good enough to get us out of here. Besides, the double-ohs are what they slide in the one-fifties, mount in bomb racks, rocket pods, that kind of crap. Nothing we could carry… Unless I can figure out how to bolt an artillery piece to that car…”

“We're trying to be inconspicuous,” Harry said patiently.

Scott sighed. “I suppose we are.” He paused then, looking confused. “Shit, did I really just beat up your cousin?”

Harry looked at him askance. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, you did.”

“Godammit. That was uncalled for.”

Harry was dumbfounded by the uncharacteristic expression of remorse. “What's got into you?”

“Teen form, that's what.” Scott sighed again. “It lingers, you know. I changed just a little bit ago. Still feel stupid… impulsive. Chatty. End up punching a kid in the throat, that's nice. I need to settle back in to being _me_ , not a bag of hormones.”

“You calling _me_ a bag of hormones, too?”

“Indirectly. But you are, yes.” Scott moved back from the window and surveyed the rest of the room. “I heard from Lila that you've still been mailing Ginny, correct?”

“Yes, and it hasn't had much to do with hormones,” Harry replied, making the connection in Scott's train of thought. “Keep your nose out of my letters.”

“Keep your snog sessions off of my couch,” Scott shot back. “Whatever erotic missives you've been sending, I don't care… much.”

Harry decided to ignore that. “Have you seen this?” he asked, changing the subject. He grabbed his crumpled copy of the _Daily Prophet_ and chucked it over to Scott.

“Seen what?” Scott said, trying to smooth out the pages.

“That article. About Dumbledore. By fucking _Skeeter!_ I'd thought Hermione had her number, but I guess even that's not enough anymore.” Harry's hands curled into fists. “He's hardly been gone for a couple months and people are already just…”

“Rewriting history, I take it,” Scott guessed, peering at the newspaper.

“To say the least,” Harry grated.

Scott lowered the paper and raised an eyebrow at Harry. “Is this something we need to take care of?”

“Take care of _how_?”

“Depends whether this Skeeter person is actively working against us, or just an opportunist. Is she taking a side, or making some money?”

Harry scoffed. That was an easy enough question to answer. “Making some money. She's a piece of work, but not really Death Eater material.”

“All right. Understandable motivation, deplorable methods. Let me know if we need to shut her up. This sort of thing doesn't _seem_ impactful, but you would know better than me.” Scott shrugged.

“Most people don't listen to her. I hope,” Harry amended. “What would you do to her?”

“Customary threats, as a starter. Maybe I'm wrong, but she doesn't seem likely to hold on to journalistic integrity at that point.”

“You have to have journalistic integrity to hold on to it.”

Scott grinned. “Point.”

“I just can't believe she can do that,” Harry muttered.

“The free press cuts both ways. From the look of things this will soon be irrelevant, because the wizarding press won't be close to free under Voldemort.” Scott frowned. “He's got people afraid to say his name. He has to be a good propagandist. Or at the very least, he knows how to be memorable. I think we can expect wide-ranging manipulation of the media as the Ministry comes under his control.”

That was an entire other issue, one that Harry wasn't ready to face. He didn't know what could be done about the Ministry, except for finding the Horcruxes and getting rid of Voldemort quickly. That didn't appear terribly likely, though. Harry knew he would be dodging Death Eaters and the Ministry in equal measure.

“Not much we can do about it,” he said.

“Now _now_ , no,” Scott agreed. “No defence is perfect, however. Given the opportunity, the Ministry may be a good target.”

Harry didn't know what kind of plans Scott was forming, but they probably involved a great deal of violence. With dull resignation, he reckoned Ginny's speculative scenario of Scott burning down the Ministry was close to the truth. Harry would prefer that it not come to that. He didn't like the idea of destroying the wizarding world in order to save it.

“Let's try to stay focussed,” he warned Scott. “We have to find those Horcruxes and we can't stop to fight every Death Eater in the country along the way.”

“Again, speed is the key.”

“But how fast are we going to be, searching for bloody Horcruxes?” Harry said impatiently, feeling like Scott was missing the point. “You'll be dragging us along with you, remember. We're not soldiers, or — or whatever it is you're supposed to be. I have to sleep, even if you don't.”

Scott shrugged. “Then we hide sometimes. It's not the biggest country, but big enough. But I still think a running battle is our best chance. Fire and manoeuvre, Harry. Don't let them fix you.”

“I'll try. But I'm just…” Harry paused. What was he, exactly? The Boy Who Lived? The Chosen One? Or (as he felt) just a dumb kid in over his head? “…a student. I'm not any good at this.”

“Not yet,” Scott added. “And I disagree. You've shown yourself to be a fighter more than once. You didn't give up when Voldemort had you before.”

“And I got lucky,” Harry muttered.

“Sometimes, that's all you need.” Scott glanced at the doorway. “I think someone else is here.”

“It must be the Order,” Harry said hurriedly, throwing open the door and rushing for the stairs. “You'd better stay up here!”

Not waiting for Scott's reply, Harry quickly descended and found Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones attempting to engage the Dursleys in conversation. In Harry's opinion that was a complete waste of time, and he was tempted to say so, but, considering that his relatives might be living with the two Order members, there was no reason to sour things so soon. Diggle and Jones would find out just what the Dursleys were like in short order.

“Harry Potter!” Dedalus exclaimed, beaming at him. “Good to see you again!”

Harry spared him a polite nod, but quickly approached the Dursleys. Dudley had managed to pick himself up off the floor and was slumped against the arm of the sofa, frequently coughing. “These are the Order members I told you about. Go with them and do what they tell you,” Harry instructed Vernon.

Vernon was cowed, but not completely beaten. “Boy—” he started.

Harry leaned in closer. “Do I need to get Scott to help move things along?” he asked in a low voice.

Vernon swallowed whatever protest had been forthcoming, eyes wild. “Come on, Petunia,” he said weakly. “Let's be off.”

Harry stood by the stairs and watched in silence as the Dursleys left. Vernon's shoulders were slumped, appearing defeated. He didn't even glance at Harry as he went out the door. Aunt Petunia held herself stiffly, though the fear in her posture undermined the attempt she was making at dignity. She did look Harry's way, just for a moment; whatever she saw in his eyes made her flinch. Her mouth moved the tiniest fraction, but the words were left unsaid.

As Dudley staggered along — bent forward slightly, with the hand that Scott hadn't injured gingerly touching his throat — he paused at the doorway. Harry thought he seemed confused, and for a moment it looked as if he might say something. Instead, a great jagged cough burst from his lungs, and he turned away.

There wasn't a whole lot of emotion attached to seeing them leave. Harry had written them all off a long time ago. There was no point looking for family where he'd never find it. And he'd already found it elsewhere.

Back upstairs, Scott was waiting. “Everything taken care of?” he asked.

“They're gone,” Harry confirmed.

“Anything you want to do while you got the chance? Set fire to the curtains? Take a shit on their bed?”

That made Harry laugh. “No, I think I'm all right. Leaving is enough for me.”

“Cool. But if you want to steal a TV or something, I won't say anything.”

“Where would I put it?” Harry went over to his bed and fell back onto his pillow. The sun was still bright in the sky.

As he stared upwards, the ceiling held no answers for the problems facing him. The man sitting at the foot of his bed might. Harry reckoned Scott had already said his piece, though. A waiting car and a rucksack of bombs were probably just part of the plan. Whatever came after would likely be improvised, seeing as how neither of them knew what they would be up against.

It still seemed impossibly daunting. Harry's worst fear was that Voldemort would force a confrontation right out in the street in front of the house. He didn't think he had much chance of surviving such an encounter, not even with Scott's help. Well… no. His _worst_ fear would be Voldemort and his followers killing all of Harry's friends and then Harry himself (or, even more terribly, leaving Harry alive).

Harry reached into his pocket and withdrew his wand, holding it up for inspection. It looked like a weak weapon for saving the world, or at least the United Kingdom part of it (though he sort of doubted that Voldemort would stop there). “Scott,” he said, breaking the silence, “who was the first person you ever killed?”

“That's a hell of a thing to ask,” Scott replied calmly.

Harry winced. “Sorry.”

“I don't know.”

“You don't…” Harry blinked, realising that Scott had actually answered the question, sort of. “How can you not know?”

“It was a firefight. It was dark. I wasn't the only person shooting. I shot more than one target, but as to which I killed? I don't know. Highground credited me two confirmed kills. The OpFor took their dead and wounded with them when they withdrew. I never saw either.”

That sounded very impersonal, and not at all what Harry had imagined for his fight against Voldemort. “Why were you fighting them? If it's okay to ask, that is…” he hedged, trying to be a bit more tactful.

“I was still in the Third Army at the time. I got my dick wet in universe, uh… I can't remember the number. But it was Operation Hold Spree, I remember that. I was with the 113th FIR, Sigma Company. Standard interdiction orders: they put us between the OpFor and the civvies and told us to send them packing. We did it, all right.” Scott paused. “As for the _why_ … I think there was a long term UO manifestation, and we were preventing… something or the other. It might have been ethnic.”

“What does ‘Hold Spree' mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything. It was just the operations tag, they're always random.”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “Then what's the operations tag for this?”

“Halberd Prevalence. The words are nonsense, but the initials might be more than coincidence. Someone has to name the mission, and I think a lot of times inspiration comes straight from the intel.”

Scott was being unusually forthcoming. Normally Harry would have to pry anything Kharadjai related out of him. “So that was your first battle, huh.”

“Oh, no. Not at all. I was with the 202nd SFM for years before that, Second Fleet Marines. Homefront SAD, Canaan Sector. Stationed on the KCC _Ultimatum_. Before that, 542nd RIR, Kappa Company. Saw some action during the Hanetse elections. And before that, the 195th SFM, Carcer Patrol, KCC _Longevity_. And other stuff, too.”

Harry couldn't really process that many acronyms, so he just forged onward. “But you never killed anyone during any of those battles?”

“Kharadjai engagements. Strictly on the homefront. Always kind of tricky to fight other Kharadjai. Go through _multus_ ammunition making sure they stay down.”

“Wow. Yeah, that's got to be hard, fighting other people like you.”

“Luckily, most aren't like me. Back then, _I_ wasn't like me. The Primarius will do that to you.”

“And experience, I'd bet,” Harry said dryly. “Not like you've had a clean bill of health so far here.”

“And the worst is yet to come, my troubled friend. How fortunate you have me as your handy damage sponge.”

Harry didn't feel comfortable throwing anyone into the line of fire, not even Scott. “Let's try to be careful, I don't want anything like that to happen.”

“We can be careful. But, Harry…” Scott's voice turned serious. “When it comes down to the wire, don't hesitate. Get behind me, kick me out the door, tell me to draw their fire, whatever you have to do. This world needs you, and it won't miss me.”

“Whatever,” Harry muttered, feeling the bitterness touching the back of his tongue, just like it always did whenever his supposed indispensability came up.

“No. Not whatever. You fucking do it.”

Harry was starting to understand what Lila had meant. “Fine. I get it.”

Scott sighed. “You don't. But that's just part of who you are.”

“Enough of this,” Harry grumbled, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “What are we going to do for the rest of the day?”

“It's your house now, boyo. We could redecorate.”

“I thought décor was Lila's thing.”

Scott grinned. “Only the part where you add stuff. Myself, I like to subtract.”

And that's how Harry spent the next couple of hours practising his throwing aim with Aunt Petunia's china plates. It was petty, but so was she.

***---~**~---***  

“I don't like this,” Neville said stubbornly.

“I know, Neville,” Luna said sympathetically. “But Daddy has been alone for a bit too long, don't you think? How can he be expected to catch a Snorkack without my help?”

Neville crossed his arms, not yielding to the point. He was watching as Luna packed the few belongings she had brought with her during her extended stay in the newly created guest bedroom. Against his better judgement, she was going back home.

In the past, Neville had almost invariably spent his summers alone. The plants in the greenhouse were his only companions, a (usually) silent collection of distractions to keep him occupied. He'd never had any friends he thought he could invite over for a visit; he knew that Harry was stuck at his own house for the duration, and, well… he supposed he might contact Ron or one of the other blokes from the dormitory, but, unless they liked plants, there wasn't a whole lot to _do_ at Neville's.

The Longbottom Estate was a large, draughty old place, the kind of generational residence that had more rooms than occupants. That had been especially true for Neville's childhood, spent largely in the company of his grandmother and whatever relatives came to visit. There were doors that he hadn't opened in years, rooms full of cloth-covered furniture and heirlooms of indeterminate origin. The grounds were equally vast, though a great deal of the property hadn't been tended to. Past the greenhouse was an overgrown field, and then past that stood the woods, marked only by the trails of deer.

When Scott had advised Neville that a Death Eater had been spotted lurking about Luna's place, Neville hadn't needed the unsubtle hints the Kharadjai had dropped: he had known exactly what to do. That night, he had gone into the room across from his, forcing open squeaky, rusted windows and bashing out the splintery shutters when he couldn't suss out how to unlock them. Loads of dust had been sent out those windows, the cloth coverings on the bed and dressing table following it.

When Neville informed his grandmother that he would shortly have a guest, she had been too shocked to protest. Probably because he had simply told her, and not asked. Neville wasn't sure he had ever done that before.

He had never sent anything through the post, nor did he contact her via Floo, but the next day Luna had shown up on his doorstep, regardless. Scott had obviously taken care of things (and knew Neville well enough that he had never bothered to check and see if Luna could stay in the first place). The second that Neville had seen her on the porch, all floating golden hair and wide silvery eyes, his heart was caught in a fist. He had _desperately_ wanted to avoid disappointing her. And he'd been afraid that his house and whatever entertainment he could provide would be entirely disappointing.

But Luna had flitted from room to room, from the kitchen to the greenhouse, expressing wonderment at the smallest things. Neville had followed her in a daze, registering her gentle chatter only peripherally. She'd smelled good. Maybe that had been an odd thing to notice (and certainly not something he could ever express to her), but he had been stuck on it, nonetheless.

Luna liked spending time with him out in the greenhouse, inventing fanciful origins for all his plants, giving them each a name. She loved the woods. Neville hadn't ever spent much time in them, but he followed her about as if she were magnetic, caught in her pull, stopping her only when they strayed close to the edge of the magical protections. At night, she would pull out a new book from the small library downstairs and read the ending with him. She explained that she always read the ending first, since she didn't want to get involved with the story if it didn't end happily. Sometimes she would read it backwards, for a different perspective. At supper-time, Gran would try her best to bore little, disapproving holes into Luna with her eyes, but Luna never seemed to notice. After awhile, Neville even found it funny.

And always, _always_ , he noticed every little thing about her. The way her wayward tresses caught the slightest breeze. The way her small, pale hands held the pages of a book, so careful and reverential. The way her eyes lit up when some new fancy struck her. The way her delicate nose crinkled when she laughed, always full-bodied and without restraint. The way her perfect rosebud mouth pursed before she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek before bed.

It was the best summer Neville had ever had.

And now she was leaving him.

“Luna, we don't know whether it's safe for you to go yet,” he argued.

“It won't be long before Bill Weasley's wedding, I'll have to wear a dress, and I didn't bring anything suitable,” Luna told him, making an unusually relevant argument. One thing spending a summer with her had taught Neville was that her head wasn't in the clouds as much as most people tended to think.

“Just tell me what you need, I'm sure Scott could get it for you,” Neville countered lamely, knowing full well that he hadn't any way to contact Scott.

Luna stood up from where she had been stuffing a pair of trousers into her bag, and frowned. “I know he's a friend, but perhaps not in that way? I don't think I'd want Scott sorting through my knickers.”

Neville's mind was immediately barraged by images of a drawer full of Luna's knickers and her wearing various pairs. He impatiently brushed the thoughts away. “All right, what about Ginny?”

Luna reached over and took his hand. “Neville, I know you don't want me to go. But I can't stay here forever. I don't think your grandmother would like that at all.”

So she _had_ noticed Gran's frosty demeanour. “Oh, she'll be all right, she just… needs time to get used to having someone else here, it's usually just the two of us—”

“No, Neville,” Luna said firmly. She squeezed his hand. “I have to go. But we'll see each other again very soon.”

Neville held onto her hand tightly, vainly searching for some reason why she simply couldn't go. “I…”

Without warning, Luna stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a close hug. Neville was generally aroused by her presence alone, and even as he put his own arms around her shoulders he was hoping that she didn't press any closer. His reaction to the hug would be entirely obvious at that point.

“I understand,” she hummed into his chest. “I don't want to go, either. But it's time.” She looked up at him, her silvery eyes completely captivating. “You smell quite nice,” she noted.

Neville swallowed with some difficulty. “Th-thanks…”

She blinked. “Oh, before I go, there was something I wanted to give you.”

“What's that?”

Luna lifted herself up on her toes, pulled down on Neville's neck, and pressed her lips to his.

Neville froze. He didn't know what to do. Every cell in his brain was screaming in ecstasy but he was just standing there like a lump. He had to do _something!_ But by the time he had decided that he should at least _try_ to kiss her back, Luna had pulled away.

She licked her lips, and Neville's gaze traced the movement of her pink tongue. “That was exhilarating,” she noted. “Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” he said weakly. “I liked it a lot.”

“Oh, that's good. I thought you might not, since you didn't move at all. But I've never kissed a boy before, so I don't have any comparison. Is that normal?”

Neville responded by lifting her up and kissing her with every ounce of pent up attraction he had accumulated over the summer. When they finally broke apart, they were both gasping for air.

“How was that?” Neville ventured. He was already eyeing her lips again and felt like he could never, ever get tired of them.

Luna seemed slightly dazed. She touched her mouth in wonderment. “I've never understood before why so many people like kissing, but I do now. It's a lot of fun, isn't it?”

Neville nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh.”

“I like it very much.” She looked back up at him with an almost hungry expression. “I think it's more fun with you than it would be with anyone else. I feel warm all over; do you? Especially down here.” She placed one hand in a spot that almost made Neville choke on his own saliva. “Would you like to kiss me again?”

Neville had never been more sure of anything in his life. “Um, yeah.”

“All right then,” she said, and moved her hands to his neck again.

Once again, the demands of oxygen forced them to separate. Neville was about sick of this ‘breathing' thing. “Luna… would you like to be my girlfriend?”

Luna's smile was as bright as the sun. “Of course! I've been waiting all summer for you to ask.”

“You—” Neville started, but then he realised that there wasn't any point. What was obvious to Luna had escaped far smarter people than himself.

“It's been such a wonderful summer, and I enjoyed spending it with you even more than I thought I would — and I thought I would quite a lot. I was right.” She hugged him again, even more tightly than before. “You've been a great friend, and I'm glad you also want to be more. I've never had a boyfriend before. This is very exciting!”

Oh, yes. It was _very_ exciting. Neville shifted his hips away from her slightly. “It has been a great summer, hasn't it? Best I've ever had. And I've never had a girlfriend, either.”

“Really?” Luna actually seemed surprised. “I think that's odd. You're brave and handsome, and kind.”

Neville blushed. “Yeah, well, you're really smart, and pretty and nice to everyone, even rotten gits like Malfoy. I can't imagine why any bloke would pass you up.”

Luna smiled again. “That's why we should be together, Neville. We see what nobody else does.”

They were holding hands on the front porch when Luna's father came to get her. Neville thought he might let go before Mr Lovegood saw, but couldn't think of any way to do it without upsetting Luna. Gran was already glaring at them from behind the window curtain. No doubt she'd have some words for him when he went back inside, but Neville didn't care. This was one decision Gran hadn't forced him into, and she couldn't force him out of it, either.

Luna made the hand-dropping irrelevant when she gave him an enthusiastic kiss right before she turned to go. Mr Lovegood was busily looking about with great interest, and Neville wasn't even sure he'd noticed; that was, until he paused to give Neville a very direct look. Neville couldn't control the blush that stole over his face, but stood his ground. Luna wasn't ashamed of it, and he wouldn't be, either.

As he watched her leave, all he could think about was seeing her again. The short time to the wedding didn't seem so short at all.

As expected, Gran had immediately tried to corner him with questions about ‘that Lovegood girl', but Neville wasn't having any of it. He brushed past her with promises of talking later and went straight to his room.

There, resting upon his bed, every sensation she had left him with crowded his mind. The taste of her lips, the feel of her small form enfolded in his own… It was all so immediate, and tortuously unrepeatable. He wanted to do it all over again.

It was funny, really. Neville had always thought that finding his first girlfriend would be an awkward, difficult experience. That he'd have no idea what to do and would probably muck it all up before it even started. The only part of that which ended up being true was that he really didn't know what to do.

But he couldn't _wait_ to find out.

***---~**~---*** 

“Fuck me,” Scott muttered. Reaching over, he knocked one of his pieces off the board.

“I suppose you think that was lucky,” Harry said sarcastically.

Scott brought his hands up and rubbed at his temples, peering at the board with furious concentration. “You made an estimated guess, and it worked. Real combat is not so forgiving… Although, sometimes—” He moved his piece forward, forcing Harry to reveal that his own piece was inferior. “—it is.”

“Damn it.” Harry had improved after four straight games of Stratego, but Scott was still reigning champion.

“Look for the patterns. The ranks are thinning… Am I obvious enough that those stationary units are bombs, or am I just screwing with you? Am I moving in a definable way, or am I just responding to _your_ moves?”

“I don't know, that's the problem.” Harry leaned his head over onto one hand. “I need to find my own strategy game to be good at. I'm tired of losing to Ron in chess and you in this.”

Scott made a face of disbelief. “What? We've played four games just tonight, how many years have you been losing to Ron? We're not exactly in the same league.”

“Well, I'm already tired of it. And I think that's a bomb,” Harry said, pointing at one of Scott's pieces.

“Only one way to find out…”

“Okay.” Harry grabbed the edges of the game board and spun it around so that Scott's pieces were revealed to him. “There we go. I was right, it was a bomb.”

Instead of flying into a (admittedly justified) rage, Scott only smiled sharply. “ _Now_ you're thinking. Don't ever play the game they want you to. There are no rules, only limits.”

Harry sighed. “I can't win at all. If I play fair you beat me; if I cheat you don't get angry and take all the fun right out of it.”

“Someday you might have to flip the board on Riddle. And that's not a game.”

“Fight to win,” Harry stated tiredly, the underlying mantra of so many of Scott's ‘lessons'. Harry usually felt like he was being tested, not taught.

“No glory in war. No honour in killing. No dignity in death.”

“Is that a quote?” Harry asked. “Or did you make that up, too?”

“ _Nullus bellum in decus. Nullus honor in interfectis. Nullus dignitas in mortem._ ” Scott leaned back in his chair. “It's a quote, yeah. Older than you, older than me, older than anyone still alive to remember it. The point is that we don't do these things because they're fun. We do them because we must. Don't put on a show, just get it done.”

“Like you did with Dudley?” Harry said bitingly.

“Wrong target, right idea.” Scott shrugged. “Sorry about that, again.”

Harry sighed. “It's all right. He had it coming.”

“So do a lot of other people. And wait, what else did I say I made up?”

“The thing about the ‘shield within',” Harry said. When Scott looked blank, he added, “Remember? Back in the Room of Requirement, after you blocked everyone's spells. You said that you made up that quote about the shield.”

“Really?” Scott appeared surprised.

Harry thought Scott might be fooling around at that point. “Come off it. You're telling me you don't remember that at all?”

“No, I know the quote. _Nullus vim supra scutum introrsus. '_ No power above the shield within'. I don't remember telling you it came from me, though. Maybe you're thinking of something else.”

“No, I'm not. You said you made it up,” Harry told him exasperatedly.

“Hmm. Well, if I did — _if_ I did — then I was totally lying.”

“So you lied. What a surprise.”

Scott actually looked a bit embarrassed. He glanced out the kitchen window. “Getting darker out there.”

“The Order should be here before too long,” Harry said, allowing Scott to change the subject. “You might want to go upstairs. Last thing we need is for them to see you.”

“What, you're just going to leave me up there alone? I'll get bored.”

“We'll both be lucky if boredom is the worst that happens tonight,” Harry said grimly.

“Cheerful. C'mon, let's go upstairs and make sure you didn't forget to pack anything. I'm sure that will be riveting.”

Despite Scott's suggestion, Harry was the only one checking to see if anything needed to be packed once they returned to his room. Scott stared out the window whilst Harry peeked under the bed and went through his wardrobe, stirring up dust rather than anything vital. Apparently not content with the view, Scott left and went into the other rooms.

Harry was considering Scott's words about hiding out with the Muggles; some of the attire he had might still be useful in that regard. Most of it was just poorly fitting clothing that Dudley had outgrown, but it was better than nothing. It would do until he could buy some more.

“Harry, come here,” Scott called out from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room.

Harry dropped the shirt he had been examining and walked down the short hallway to where Scott was looking out the double windows intently. They offered a view of the back garden, as opposed to Harry's window, which mostly offered a view of the neighbouring house. It occurred to him, as he walked around the bed, that he had never actually been in the room before, or, if he had, he had been too young to remember.

Scott pointed at something outside. “You see that man walking down the street back there?”

Harry looked in that direction and saw the outline of someone before they went out of sight behind an obstructing house. “What about him?”

“That's the third time he's covered that part of the walk.”

Harry felt a chill run down his spine.

“He's nervous,” Scott continued. “He keeps looking around, but not finding anything. He's also wearing slippers, corduroy pants and a turtleneck sweater. So either he's high as a kite, or he's trying to fit in and doesn't understand how or why.”

Harry knew what he thought was most likely. “He's looking for me.”

“Probably. If he is, he's not alone.”

It was a very bad discovery, but Harry had known something like it was inevitable. He set his jaw. “We have to warn the Order. If we can get a letter out in time, they'll call it off.”

Scott nodded. “Okay. Make it fast.”

Harry rushed back to his room, grabbing a loose piece of paper from his desk. He had no sooner begun to scrawl out his desperate message when Scott appeared in the doorway.

“Too late,” Scott said calmly. He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. “Your ride is here.”

Harry dropped his quill, not caring when it fell and smeared ink on the floor. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Go see what the plan is, but try not to leave without letting me know.”

“Leave?” Harry said incredulously. “I can't leave, not now, those bastards are right out there! They'll attack everyone with me, we'll have to figure something else out.”

“Like what? We already knew this could happen.” Scott held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “Just go downstairs and see what the plan is. We'll go from there.”

“Fine. But I'm not putting anyone else in danger. I'll go alone if I have to.”

Scott laughed quietly. “You really think you could get out of here without me knowing?”

That, Harry thought as he descended the stairway, was a problem for later. First he had to find out what the Order was up to.

What they were up to, as it turned out, was completely unacceptable.


	3. Goodbye, Arcadia Part II

**3**

**Goodbye, Arcadia**

**Part II**

**\---**

_“Initial encounters were scattered and indecisive. On the fourth  
_ _day at 1400 hours, the opposing force occupied the tree line  
_ _directly northwest of our forward positions. During the  
_ _following six hours, repeated artillery strikes were directed  
_ _at the enemy in the hope of creating gaps to exploit. These  
_ _proved ineffective at dislodging them, and enemy casualties  
_ _appeared light._

 _At 2100 hours the order was given to attack and force the  
_ _opposition out of their entrenched line. We advanced that  
_ _night under the cover of smoke.”_

—Excerpt from POR, Operation Lucid Javelin, U:1118907/Palgarvin  
           Decanus Scott Kharan reporting, regarding Talbot's Field (Field 187),  
           670-1122lts (pg. 24)

\--- 

Scott sat on the edge of the bed and listened. The discussion occurring downstairs was very animated.

The time had come for Harry to leave the protections his mother had left him at the house on Privet Drive, and the Order of the Phoenix had arrived to oversee the transition. However, whatever they had planned was obviously not to Harry's liking, if his raised voice was anything to judge by.

Scott couldn't say he was surprised. The Order had no doubt come fully prepared to put themselves in the line of fire to protect their all-important Chosen One. And if there was one thing Harry simply could not abide (made all the worse by the loss of his godfather, Scott conjectured) it was others dying for his cause. A cause he hadn't even chosen; it had chosen _him_.

Scott knew that was how the multiverse worked. He had seen and dealt with it before. Harry was much less accepting of such invisible machinations. Scott understood that, as well. He would be interested to see if Harry could convince whoever was downstairs (Scott recognised a few of the signatures pulsing in the shape, but not all) that they would be better off letting Harry go it alone.

A small smile played around Scott's lips. He very much doubted that.

Either way, there were rapid footsteps on the stairs. Scott could tell it was Harry, so the truth would soon be apparent. One way or the other, they were leaving. The question was simply how.

When Harry burst through the door with panic writ large on his face, Scott knew exactly what was going to happen.

“We're leaving,” Harry said shortly. “Now. Out the window.”

Scott didn't bother asking why. “Leave them a note, and let's go.”

Whilst Harry scribbled frantically away at a piece of parchment, Scott quietly opened the window and dropped to the ground. He dragged his equipment bag out from under the bush which had so helpfully concealed it. Through the small side window in the kitchen he could see shadows playing on the dining room walls. It looked like quite a crowd in there.

“Help,” Harry whispered from up above. Once again, Scott assisted in his descent.

“Your stuff?” Scott asked in a low voice, noting that Harry wasn't carrying anything.

Harry was pale in the moonlight. “They'll take it. But we can't just leave them, we have to… draw attention, to ourselves.

Scott immediately began walking towards the street. “How long until they find your note?”

“Probably seconds,” Harry said grimly.

“Get in the car,” Scott said, starting to run.

They raced for the vehicle. As they ran, Scott dug into his duffel bag and pulled out one of the white phosphorous grenades he had been saving for just such an occasion. The black metal casing was stamped with yellow letters:

 **CI-WP6**  
DISTRACTION DEVICE  
 FUSE(4s)  
CL.INCR(1s\60s)  
LOT.414 TAM-MO.68770

Sliding into the driver's seat, he threw the bag into the back and thrust the grenade at Harry.

“The plastic dial on the face, it has red lines at intervals — turn it one to the right. Ignore the little clicks, move it one red bar to the right,” Scott instructed, starting the car as he did so. “Then pull the pin out of the top, that ring.”

Harry fumbled with the grenade for a moment, but figured it out quickly. “Okay, one red bar to the right.” He pulled the pin and the catch snapped open. “I think that's got it.”

“Good. Have your protections broken yet?”

“My… On the house?” Harry looked backwards as they drove down the street, the house that had been his home and hell rapidly disappearing. “I don't know. I didn't think about it until you said that.”

“Then we can assume they are.” Scott glanced up at the rear-view mirror but didn't see anyone following. “You see this intersection coming up?”

Harry turned back around. “Yes, I see it.”

“Throw that sucker out the window right in the middle.”

“But there's glass, how do I—” Harry started, though Scott quickly rolled the window down. “All right, here goes…”

Harry threw the phosphorous grenade out into the empty street, where it rolled a few feet before coming to rest in the recession of a drain.

While Harry had done as instructed, he was not satisfied that the Order members left behind would be any safer. “So what's that going to do? Scott, we have to go back. If the others get caught coming out of the house—”

“It was a timer, Harry, and while I'm impressed you didn't have any reservations about holding a live grenade, maybe that's because you forgot it's a _grenade.”_

The grenade ignited with a blinding flash. It was not the natural light of fire but a scorching, pure white chemical burn that flickered with a painful brightness. A thick cloud of smoke roiled from the drain and created a dense cover that rapidly obscured the street behind them, suffused with an incredible glare that made it seem as if the entire intersection was blanketed with condensed light.

“Like kicking over an anthill,” Scott murmured, checking his mirrors again. Any Death Eaters in the area would flock to that display, finding nothing but smoke and night blindness.

“They'll see that for sure,” Harry said, echoing Scott's thoughts. “God, that actually hurts!”

“Don't look directly at it. And, yeah, everyone will see it.” Scott settled back into his seat, but kept a sharp eye on his mirrors. “There's a hat in the glove compartment, put it on. And take off your glasses, there's a different pair in there as well.”

Harry tugged at the latch and found the cap inside, the front of it emblazoned with a cartoon fox striking an enthusiastic pose. The back of it proclaimed, ‘LIKE A FOX'. He also found the case containing a pair of grey-rimmed glasses with rectangular lenses. “I get it,” he said thoughtfully as he put them on. “What about my scar?”

“Between the hat and your hair, it's fine. But we we're not in the clear yet, so keep your guard up. Lila is waiting up ahead at a waystation. She has another car, and we'll switch out there.”

“You think the Death Eaters would recognise one car from another?”

Scott shrugged. “Let's not take that chance.”

His precautions were admittedly more like the ones he might take for a Muggle opponent. He was switching lanes frequently, taking less obvious routes and occasionally doubling back when the roads permitted it. If Harry noticed, he didn't say anything; his eyes were firmly fixed on the sky.

“The protections should have broken once you left for good,” Scott reasoned as he drove. “If they didn't attack us when we crossed the street, it's because they couldn't see us. The protections were still working.”

“Or they wanted to see what we were doing. Or wait for Voldemort to get there,” Harry countered pessimistically.

“I don't buy it. They had us dead to rights, out in the open. They had no reason to hesitate; even if they were looking to capture you, they still would have tried to kill me.”

“Moody said that they didn't know it was tonight, that the move was tonight,” Harry said slowly. “That was the secret. Apparently they've gotten to some bloke in the Ministry who made it hard to get me out of there, banned the Floo and Apparating, all of that. So they were going to all leave on brooms.”

“But you caught a ride with me anyway because of that dude we saw on the other street,” Scott guessed.

“Sort of. Moody had Polyjuice, if you can believe it,” Harry scoffed. “That was their shite plan, to disguise themselves as me and split up. Moody reckoned they'd all go for his broom, since they'd think I'd be with him, the strongest.”

Scott smiled slightly. He had known it was something like that; Harry was incapable of allowing others to take the weight of his terrible responsibility. The boy sounded deeply shaken by the thought, even though it hadn't actually occurred. “And it could have been a massacre,” Scott said, deciding to play to Harry's assumptions for the time being.

“No, because I wasn't effing doing it,” Harry growled.

“What did you put in your note?” Scott asked, taking the hint and changing the subject.

“I was in a bit of a rush when I wrote it,” Harry said with wry understatement, “but it was mostly for Hermione.”

***---~**~---*** 

It was after the one minute mark, almost exactly, that Hermione decided Harry definitely wasn't coming back.

Nobody else had seemed to catch on, yet. Moody was suspicious, but the rest of the assembled team looked content to wait for Harry to haul his trunk downstairs, secure in the knowledge that they had forced him into accepting their escape plan.

Hermione knew better. Harry had fled because he had a way out. She had known the second he'd begged off, resisting giving them his hair for the potion immediately, shouting about his things as he charged up the steps. She had known, but hadn't tried to stop him. That was perhaps a bit unusual for her. However, she felt that she needed to have faith. If Harry thought he had a better way, then maybe he really did. The fact that Scott was almost certainly somewhere nearby had a lot to do with Hermione's confidence. The Kharadjai would no doubt have plans of his own.

After a few more seconds, George nudged Fred in the side. “C'mon, let's at least help him to hurry things along.”

Fred acted surprised. “Were we in a hurry?”

When they started towards the stairs, Hermione's loud sigh stopped them. “Don't bother,” she said flatly. “He's already gone.”

The twins just looked blankly back at her. “Gone where?” Fred said dumbly.

Moody's magical eye whirled and fixed on her. “Damn it, girl, if you're saying what I think you're—”

“Come on, then,” Hermione said exasperatedly, ignoring all the stares and expressions of dismay at her revelation. “I do hope he's left a note…”

The Order members crowded onto the stairs in a race to the top. Hermione didn't bother, bringing up the rear. When she reached Harry's room it was empty, just as she had predicted. Moody was muttering a number of sulphurous oaths under his breath as he scanned the space. Hermione ignored him, approaching the bed.

“Oh, good,” she said, picking up the hastily written note. “At least he remembered this much.”

“What's tha' say?” Hagrid rumbled, his huge form taking up a good portion of the room. “Did he say where he went off to?”

“Of course not,” Hermione muttered, scanning the words. “He knew we'd follow him.”

“Bloody hell, Hermione, just tell us what it says!” Ron burst out.

One part of it, Hermione knew, was for her and Ron's understanding only. “‘Stupid plan, not doing it',” she read out loud. “‘Please take my trunk and Hedwig for me. See you later at the usual place'.” She paused. “Then there's a bit more that doesn't make any sense, I think he didn't finish.”

That particular part made perfect sense, actually. It read, ‘motor with sk'.

Moody had already examined the lettering himself. “What motor? What does he mean by that?”

Hermione wasn't a very good liar, and she knew it. Luckily, Harry had written that last part down so poorly that he had provided her plausible denial. “That's the part he didn't finish, I suppose.”

She was saved from having to continue her ad libbed deception by Bill's sudden shout from his place near the window. “WATCH IT!”

The Aurors and seasoned Order members immediately took cover, falling to the floor or rolling behind the bed and dresser. Hermione was a bit slower on the reaction time, having been caught completely by surprise, and as such she could clearly see the dark shapes that were speeding over the house.

“Death Eaters!” Moody snarled, wand at the ready.

The tension in the room ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level as wands were drawn and a few choice swearwords came up from various corners of the room (and at least a couple from the wardrobe, where Mundungus was cowering). But it quickly became apparent that the Death Eaters had no interest in them at all — in fact, it didn't seem as if they even knew the Order members were in the house. The hooded and cloaked forms of the enemy shot over the Dursley home, intent on a different target.

Ron was the first to stand, his distress clear. “They must've found Harry!”

Moody was already moving towards the door. “Outside!”

“Wait!” Bill interjected, still staring intently out the window. “I'm not sure they have. Mad-Eye, what do you make of that?”

Moody clomped over to the glass and peered outward. Hermione was close behind him. There, in the distance, a glaring white light could be seen pulsing, visible only by the trees it was illuminating.

Fleur shielded her eyes with one hand, hiding back behind Bill's shoulder. “ _C'est_ _si brillant!_ It ‘urts my eyes!”

“Magical flare, maybe, some kind of signal,” Moody was muttering. His normal eye was squinted against the brilliance. “Very bright, very powerful. Someone wants us to see this, wants _everybody_ to see this.”

“And they saw it,” Professor Lupin said tensely. He was hovering very near Tonks. “Should we follow?”

In the distance, Hermione could hear the din of sirens. Moody had as well. “Muggle police,” he said. “The Death Eaters will clear out. We will, too.”

Multiple voices immediately rose in protest, but Moody cut them off by being even louder. “SHUT IT!” he barked out. His magical eye fixed on everyone in turn, lingering on Hermione for an uncomfortable stretch. “Potter is impulsive, not stupid. That little display was his, I'd wager. However he did it…” Once again, he eyed Hermione suspiciously. She blinked nervously. “…he's long gone. Regroup and return to your posts before those blighters get their act together and come snooping around here.”

Tonks sighed and leaned against Professor Lupin. “I hope you know what you're doing, Harry…” she said, a touch fearfully.

“He'll turn up when he's ready,” Moody said gruffly. “Come on. Get up, let's move. You too, Fletcher. Budge your arse.”

Whilst the rest of the group shuffled back down the stairs, talking amongst themselves with obvious confusion, Hermione snagged Ron by the elbow and held him back. “Let's get Harry's things.”

“Oh, right! I almost forgot. Sorry, Hedwig,” Ron said, lifting the owl's cage from its hook.

Hermione didn't bother trying to physically lift Harry's enormous trunk. With a flick of her wand, she levitated it and moved it towards the doorway. “I thought this might happen,” she said quietly.

“It was Scott, wasn't it?” Ron presumed, speaking in an equally hushed tone. “Off his fu— er, _ruddy_ nut, as usual. Blimey, look at all that smoke out there. What do you suppose he burned?”

“It was too bright to be a natural fire. I imagine he used some sort of technology. And I _hope_ he didn't burn anything down in the process.” Hermione frowned, worried by the thought. She certainly didn't trust Scott to be concerned about property damage.

Ron looked equally doubtful. “Maybe he lit a few Death Eaters on fire.”

“Ron!” Hermione chided him, appalled by that image. “Scott would never… Well, that is to say he _probably_ wouldn't, not if it wasn't efficient… Perhaps. We'll ask him about it later.”

Downstairs, Moody was reapplying Disillusionment Charms. He stopped when Hermione and Ron entered the dining room, his magical eye staring at them with an unnerving fixation.

“Did you find Potter's things?” he questioned sharply, eyeing the trunk Hermione was levitating.

Hermione flinched involuntarily. “Yes…”

“Good.” Moody turned to place the charm on Tonks, but then abruptly whirled back around. “And you don't know what he was talking about with the motor?”

“Perhaps he had a Muggle vehicle of some sort?” Hermione suggested, hoping to draw attention away from the ‘sk' portion of the note.

“Huh,” Moody grunted, mulling that over. “They wouldn't be looking for an automotive, that's for sure… Could Potter operate one, if he had it?”

“He was raised by Muggles, I don't see why not.” In truth, Hermione hadn't the slightest idea if Harry knew the first thing about driving a car.

“Let's hope he doesn't crash the contraption and do the Death Eaters a favour,” Moody growled. “Let's not _any_ of us be doing them any favours, for that matter. Disillusionment Charms all around, and then get gone. And be sure you tell us the moment Potter contacts you, got it?”

Hermione felt a bit of pride at that. Moody knew that she and Ron would be the first people Harry would get in touch with. “Of course,” she promised.

When Moody went back to help the others, Ron, who had cleverly remained silent during the exchange, put his arm around Hermione's shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Are we really going to tell them? What if Harry asks us not to?”

“We'll deal with that when the time comes,” she whispered back. “Besides, Harry will have to go to The Burrow at some point. They'll see him there whether he likes it or not.”

“Probably not,” Ron suggest wryly. “Not after this.”

“Oh, he'll be a bit angry, but he'll get over it.” On impulse, Hermione stood on her toes to kiss Ron. When she drew back, she smiled at him. “We've got too much to do to be fighting.”

Minutes later they were in the air, speeding away from the Dursleys' and to where they could safely Disapparate. Hagrid had volunteered to take Harry's trunk and Hedwig, which was lucky. Hermione wasn't the best flyer, and she didn't see how she could manage either and still stay on a broom. Her own school trunk was a bit unwieldy, but Harry's looked like he could have comfortably slept inside of it.

Down below, Britain slumbered in the night air, unaware of the calamity that had nearly occurred in the suburbs nearby. Somewhere on those roads, Hermione knew as she tracked the lights of moving Muggle traffic, Harry and Scott were making their way to parts unknown.

If they didn't get there safely, Hermione would be quite cross with them.

***---~**~---***

“It's not an easy decision. Fast, but not easy. What it comes down to is what we could learn,” Scott said quietly.

Harry sat low in his seat, shoulders hunched. “Whether everyone else is all right. What they're doing here in the first place.”

“It's a net. They're watching the woods, if you noticed. Not a _good_ net, full of holes and misdirected. They probably think you're on foot, Apparating by steps.”

The two men in mismatched clothing walked an awkward perimeter at the back edge of the petrol station, clearly watching for something. Harry observed as they doubled back yet again, still pacing the same stretch of grass where the woods began. One of them, he was almost certain, had a wand tucked up in his sleeve.

“Whoever's in the shop has surely noticed them by now,” Harry muttered. “We did, and we're a lot farther away.”

“There's no one here but us and Lil,” Scott pointed out, indicating the blue car parked in the side lot. According to him, Lila was inside it. “They probably did something to take care of the attendant.”

“Stunned or Imperiused him, maybe,” Harry guessed.

“Or they killed him. I haven't seen anyone moving inside.”

Harry's blood ran cold. To think that some random Muggle could be on the floor behind the counter, dead, because Harry escaped without a trace and the Death Eaters were so desperate that they were out (on foot!) looking for him… Harry felt like he might turn to ice.

“Stop it,” Scott said calmly. “You didn't kill anyone. We don't know if _they_ killed anyone.”

“If they did, it's my fault,” Harry said numbly.

“No, it's not. Every outcome can't be predicted. What if you had gone with the Order? Would it be Ron or Hermione killed instead?”

Harry knew that Scott was purposefully manipulating his emotions. More than a year's worth of time spent with the Kharadjai had rendered his more blatant machinations transparent. But it was working, nonetheless.

“Let's go find out what they did,” Harry said tightly.

“All right. They'll try to stop us if we just walk up to the store front. Give me a minute to move around, then I'll signal you.”

“Signal me for what, what do you want me to do?”

“Just get their attention. Stay low and get over by the field, I just need you to say something to them. It will make things easier.”

With that, Scott opened his door and slipped out into the night. He disappeared into the shadows almost immediately, and Harry had a difficult time tracking him. Scott avoided the ring of illumination from the lights of the station, circling wide and heading for the side lot where Lila was parked. After a moment, Harry climbed out of the car as well, taking care not to shut the door loudly.

The petrol station was situated in a roadside clearing not too far from the motorway. It was meant to service the passing traffic, frequent even late at night. The complete lack of other vehicles made Harry suspicious. Scott had said they were driving on the A303, and weren't too far from Andover. It didn't seem likely that the station would be so deserted. The Death Eaters must have done something to repel any potential Muggle customers.

Rarely had Harry been so utterly frustrated by his inability to use magic as he was whilst creeping through a shallow ditch, trying to get closer without being seen. That sort of thing might be all well and good for Scott, but a Disillusionment Charm would have done the job for Harry. He very much regretted leaving his Invisibility Cloak in his trunk. He had been in such a hurry…

The sparse scrub at the edge of the ditch was all the cover Harry was afforded when he came to a halt. Fortunately, the Death Eaters were fixated on the tree line. Their fixation increased when the loud snap of a twig echoed out from somewhere in the woods. The Death Eater on the right slid his wand out of his sleeve, confirming Harry's earlier guess.

Another loud snap. The two men started to close in on the general location from which it had emanated. With a jolt, Harry realised that the twigs had probably been his signal to do something.

Taking a deep breath, Harry stood up. “Oi! You two!” he shouted.

The Death Eaters spun around, wands raising, but it was already too late. Scott and Lila surged from the brush with unnatural speed and sent the unfortunate Death Eaters crashing to the ground with a series of rapid blows.

Scott immediately hauled the limp form of his opponent upward and began carrying him towards the back of the station. “Lil, take yours to the other bathroom. Harry,” he called, “go check in the store, see if anyone is hurt.”

Harry ran over to the double doors, a mounting feeling of dread suffusing him. Inside, the lights — so bright after his time in the dark — illuminated a plethora of colourful products and accessories. Behind the counter, the station attendant was slumped forward in a chair, his head pillowed on his arms. He didn't appear to be harmed, which was surprising.

“Um, hello?” Harry said tentatively. The man didn't stir. “Hey, are you all right?”

Still no response. Harry would have feared the man was dead, but his chest was rising and falling evenly. The attendant was sleeping, and couldn't be woken. There wasn't any doubt that the Death Eaters had done it to him, though it wasn't nearly as terrible as what they might have done.

Harry pondered that when he returned outside. Why _hadn't_ the Death Eaters simply killed the man? He was grateful that they had not, obviously, but it was a bit confusing. Death Eaters weren't known for their compassion.

Around the back of the shop were the doors for the privy. Harry went up to the men's loo and peered inside.

Scott had situated the unconscious Death Eater on the floor, leaning against one wall. He was going through the man's pockets, rifling through the clothes with great concentration.

“There's someone in the shop, but they're just sleeping,” Harry told him.

“Makes sense,” Scott said a bit distractedly. “There are cameras in there. If they make it look like he fell asleep on the job, there won't be any questions asked.”

“I was a little surprised,” Harry admitted. “I thought they might have just killed that bloke. They've killed plenty of Muggles before…”

“And always covered their tracks. If they were going to kill him, they would have burned the place down or something. They'd have done it when they moved on.” Scott stood decisively, looking down at the Death Eater. “Close the door. We don't have much time for this.”

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to close the door. It seemed like doing so would enable Scott to do whatever… _things_ he was planning to do. Not that Harry knew what was going on, exactly, but he wasn't naive enough to think the Death Eater was just going to talk. Not without some motivation. Knowing Scott, that impetus would be very unpleasant, and perhaps not something Harry wanted to watch.

Despite these misgivings, Harry steeled himself and closed the door, but he resolved to stop Scott if he thought things were getting out of hand.

Scott picked up the Death Eater by the back of his peach-coloured coat and dragged him near the toilet. He then slapped the man's cheeks a few times until he started to stir, coughing and struggling feebly.

“Welcome back to the world of the waking,” Scott said pleasantly. “I'm going to ask you a few questions, but first—”

Scott grabbed a fistful of the Death Eater's dark hair and plunged him face first into the toilet bowl, forcing his head beneath the water. Bubbles poured out furiously; Harry could hear the frantic shouting reverberating through the ceramic. He bit down on his lip and said nothing, reasoning that if Scott wanted the Death Eater to answer any questions, then he wasn't going to outright drown him.

Sure enough, Scott pulled the man's head from the water. He kept his knee pressed firmly against the man's back, though, pinning him painfully in place. “What's your name?” he asked the man loudly. When he didn't get any immediate response other than gasping, he shook the Death Eater so hard that the man's teeth clicked together. “What is your name?”

“Preston!” the Death Eater choked out.

“Okay, Preston,” Scott said, easing up a little on the pressure from his knee. “I'd like to know what you were doing out here tonight. What were you looking for?”

“Who are you? Where am I?” Preston questioned. “What the hell are you doing, treating me like this—” He was interrupted when Scott plunged his head beneath the water again. This time when Preston was pulled back up for air, he looked faint.

“What were you looking for?” Scott asked again in the exact same tone.

“I… just want to know… who you _are_ ,” Preston garbled. “I haven't done anything, I… haven't said anything to _anyone_ , I swear! There's no call for this!”

“Preston… As a favour to you, I'll ask you one more time, then down you go again. What were you looking for?”

“Potter, of course, we… we all are, were, all of us. That's what we were told! I'm supposed to be here!”

Harry tensed at the sound of his name. It was difficult to stay silent. The Death Eater wasn't making much sense, and Harry wanted Scott to cut to the chase. He needed to know what had happened back at the house.

Scott seemed to be having the same thoughts. “What about the house? Potter's house, where he was staying, why did you leave it?”

Preston seemed aghast. “What? There was a light! Surely you saw it, or you were told?”

“Preston, I want you to tell me exactly what your orders are, and why you were given them,” Scott said slowly. He lowered Preston's head an inch closer to the water.

“The light was a fake, and Potter was gone, we were split up to search but he wasn't there, so they spread us out and gave us these clothes and we're supposed to watch the woods, just these woods, in case he comes through!” Preston spat out frantically. “I did what I was told, we put the Muggle to sleep and we watched the woods _like we were told!_ I have orders! There's no call for this!”

“And you never caught anyone else?”

 _“Who_ else?! The Dark Lord wants Potter, blast it, and that's who…” Preston suddenly went white and he fell silent. “…Who are you?”

“Why did you think he'd pass through these woods?”

Utter terror passed over Preston's face. “Fuck off. I'm not saying nothing.”

Scott glanced over at Harry. “We're out of time, anyway. Go see if the other one said anything.”

Harry hurried out the door, anxious to see if Lila had wrangled any more information from the second Death Eater. He had only taken a few steps in that direction when she emerged from the other loo.

“Lila!” Harry said, getting her attention. “Did yours say anything?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn't have enough time. Come on, those Muggle wards are already fading and we need to be gone.”

Harry fell into step beside her. “What about the Death Eaters?”

“I'll handle them. You and Scott are taking my car, and I'll take yours.” Lila pointed out the blue car she had parked at the side of the station. “It's unlocked, go get in and Scott will be right over. I just need to talk to him.”

Harry went and opened the door, stepping inside and buckling his seatbelt with slightly shaky hands. The adrenaline rush of confronting the two Death Eaters was fading, leaving him feeling a bit light-headed. He supposed things might have been simpler if they'd just kept driving, but he'd needed to be sure that no Muggles had been killed. It would have been an awful way to start the Horcrux hunt. He was aware that casualties were possible, but he'd always had the thought that if anyone died, it would be him.

Sirius had been enough of a price. No one else should have to pay it for merely being in Harry's proximity. He looked down at himself, fear clenching his throat. He was a poison, an airborne disease. He should have made Ron and Hermione stay behind. He should never have talked to Ginny.

He stopped himself before that line of thought spiralled out of control.

Scott came running up to the car and started it immediately. “That was risky,” he commented. “Lila will make sure the Death Eaters aren't found any time soon. By the time they're missed, we'll be far from here.”

“It was worth it to know that they didn't get anyone at the Dursleys',” Harry said with great relief.

Scott nodded. “We got away about as clean as we could have hoped for.”

“What was he babbling about, though? He wasn't making much sense.”

“Apparently he thought I was another Death Eater. An officer, maybe. He thought he was in trouble and that I was misinformed.”

“He thought you were on his side and you were drowning him?” Harry said incredulously.

“Riddle controls through fear. He probably has a circle within the circle, his own Gestapo to keep the ranks in line. Random brutality as part initiation, part discipline. Standard stuff for a terror army, dictatorial.” Scott almost sounded like he was reading the information from a book.

“So he thought you were kicking the shite out of him for being the wrong place. Or not finding me.” Harry sighed. “You know I hate it when people get hurt because of me, but… if a few Death Eaters get a _Crucio_ over missing me, I can't say I'd regret it.”

Scott grinned. “Yeah, me neither. This is also useful to know. That sort of tactic is a hard balance between fear and resentment — dissension can be exploited.”

Scott pulled the car back onto the motorway, merging with traffic, and soon the scenery was flying past the window once more. Harry found himself falling asleep, the left side of his forehead pressed against the cool glass. Headlamps flashed intermittently, illuminating his eyelids before dying back into the darkness. The rocking and rumbling of the vehicle was as effective as any lullaby.

It was an indeterminate amount of time later — when fewer cars blinked past and the moon was hidden behind thick clouds — that Harry's eyes popped open, propelled by a sudden dark thought.

With a cold feeling in his chest, he thought he knew why Scott had sent him out to check on Lila.

“You killed him,” Harry spoke out into the silence.

Scott didn't look away from the road. His face betrayed nothing, but his lack of response was answer enough.

And Harry didn't know what to say or feel.

“An interesting note,” Scott said casually in the silence. “While you were sleeping, I was thinking — and driving, of course — and even though I never pulled a wand on him, that Death Eater still assumed I was one of them. I was drowning him, and he didn't wonder why it wasn't a _Crucio.”_

Harry started to ask why Scott had killed Preston (and Harry fervently wished he had never learned the man's name), but shut his mouth at the last moment. He knew why Scott had done it. It was safer that way, it made sense. It was the only solution that kept dangerous information out of Voldemort's hands. Even knowing the why, though, didn't make it any less terrible or easier to accept.

So which was worse: the thought that Harry's decision to check the station had doomed the two men to death, or the thought that if he _hadn't_ made that call, the station attendant might have been a charred corpse when the Death Eaters left?

Nothing but chance. Life or death, at the mercy of a brief thought, a whim, a split-second decision. From Harry.

But if he had known beforehand, he knew which one he still would have chosen.

“…You'd just knocked him a good one. He wasn't thinking about any of that, he couldn't breathe,” Harry slowly replied.

“A good point.” Scott smiled. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

Harry relaxed a bit on this more familiar ground. “You must mean besides my brilliant good looks.”

“Compared to what? A baboon? A moray eel?”

“You, for starters.”

Scott let out a very long, exaggerated sigh. “Uh, in case you've forgotten our pre-assigned group roles, I'm the pretty one. Hermione is the brains, Ron is the muscle, Ginny is the firebrand, and you're the wannabe, the weedy, anxious little guy who wants to be like us but just ends up as the comic relief.”

That wasn't how the joke had gone originally, as Harry was quick to point out. “No, you said I was the leader and you were the wildcard. Neville was the sidekick and Luna was the… something.”

“Space cadet.”

“Right. And nobody was the ‘pretty one'. Except me, from now on.”

“You are pretty for a man, that's true.”

“You said you were, first!” Harry retorted.

“Uh, no, I'm fairly sure you just made that up. Maybe you dreamed it when you were snoring over there.”

“Shut it, Scott. Maybe if you didn't talk so much your driving wouldn't be shite,” Harry grumbled.

“We can trade off any time,” Scott said graciously.

“I wouldn't know how,” Harry reluctantly admitted.

“I figured. We'll probably have to do something about that, as a contingency. I'll get you some reading material.”

Harry started to protest, but thought better of it. Homework or not, learning to drive could be dead useful. Even Hermione didn't have a license for that.

The second the conversation lapsed back into silence, the image of Preston's terrified visage floated back to the forefront of Harry's consciousness. He didn't understand it entirely; he'd seen death before. It was the manner, he decided. The Death Eaters at Hogwarts had died fighting, cut down in combat. Preston had died frightened and alone in a Muggle lavatory, somewhere off the A303 motorway. And Harry honestly couldn't say if the man had deserved it. Preston had been a Death Eater, which meant he'd most likely done something horrible just to earn the title. But that assumption wasn't proof.

“How did you kill him?” Harry asked quickly, almost afraid of the answer.

Scott sighed. “He was there to kill me and capture you, which in the end would be the same as killing you. You know that, right?”

“He wasn't there to kill you, they had no idea I wasn't alone—”

“They'd have killed anyone with you and you know it.”

“Yeah.” Harry set his jaw. “How'd you do it?”

Scott stalled. “Harry…”

“Just tell me!” Harry violently demanded.

“You want the simple answer, or the technical answer?”

That brought Harry up short. “Just… an answer. Simple, I guess.”

“I broke his neck. It was quick and he didn't feel anything.”

“Like you would know,” Harry snorted derisively.

“I would. I've been hanged before,” Scott said mildly. “I heard the snap, but I didn't feel a thing when I blacked out.”

That was not what Harry had expected. “Oh. I… All right.”

“Harry, look.” Scott glanced over at him for a moment. “We'll have plenty of time to go into therapy later. We do what we have to, and we move on. Just try to remember the most important rule.”

Harry rubbed at his eyes, feeling more tired than anything right then. “What?”

“Don't ever enjoy it.”

Right then, that seemed easy enough. “Already done,” Harry muttered.

Was that the trick to it? Scott seemed capable of killing someone and then joking not half an hour later… Though, he hadn't joked _about_ the killing itself. He was compartmentalised, or maybe just jaded, or maybe… a million other things. Harry sighed and tried to clear his mind. People weren't that simple. _He_ wasn't that simple. He couldn't understand himself, never mind Scott's contradictions.

The dark road ahead fled backwards beneath the headlamps and offered no answers. Nothing ever did. Somewhere up ahead lay temporary safety, and, somewhere behind, the enemy was looking for him. All paths were uncertain.

Head against the window glass, Harry succumbed to a shallow and uneasy sleep.


	4. Landfall

**4**

**Landfall**

**\---**

_“It is the singular strength (and sometimes weakness) of the_  
 _integrationist to absorb a time and place and make it their own._  
 _I’ve found home in a hundred centuries, I’ve slept in pits and_  
 _palaces. ‘Home’ often implies a house, but any long-term_  
 _integrationist will tell you the same thing as I — you need to find_  
 _the heart, not the dwelling. I never could find it on my own,_  
 _because it wasn’t mine to start with._  


_—_ Excerpt from the untitled memoirs of Optio Poitr Lewllyn, Ret.

\--- 

Harry stood outside of Scott’s room, and tried not to panic.

It wasn’t that his present situation was especially stressful. He was just waiting (again), attempting to find both patience and courage. His arrival at The Burrow, a moment which was fast approaching, _that_ was what he dreaded. Because he knew he was in for it. There was a long list of people he had upset with his sudden departure from Privet Drive.

There were three formidable females at The Burrow, none of which would be happy about Harry’s impromptu escape. Between Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs Weasley, Harry reckoned he might as well make his peace. Hopefully, Hermione would let him off with a light scolding; she knew that Scott had taken care of things and trusted the Kharadjai enough for that. Ginny would also understand what had taken place, but when it came to Scott… Well, Harry would have to work to smooth that over. And Mrs Weasley would be the worst of all, because Harry couldn’t tell her the truth (about much of anything).

The Order would be angry that he had abandoned them. He didn’t care too much about that, though. Their idea of a ‘plan’ had been completely unacceptable, and he didn’t regret not going through with it. Moody might be infuriated because things hadn't gone according to his design, Harry wasn't certain; he'd never known the real Moody. Tonks would probably laugh it off, she was easygoing enough. Hagrid would be worried, but accepting. Remus would be the most distressed. Harry’s former professor had taken it upon himself to try and fill in for Sirius, and took the duty of godfather to heart. Harry would have to apologise; Remus deserved that, at least. He might have understood if Harry had been able to explain.

That was the hardest part of the whole mess. Harry couldn’t explain, not to anyone that didn’t already know.

And that was a short list, indeed. Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Harry himself. There would have been one more name, but Dumbledore was gone. Had fate allowed it, there would have been two. Harry wouldn’t have kept anything from Sirius, even if Scott wanted him to (though he doubted the Kharadjai would have had any objections — in fact, Harry thought Scott and Sirius would probably have got along well).

That brought the guilty notion that Remus also deserved to know. Harry couldn’t imagine a good time for that conversation.

The door to Scott’s room flew open and the occupant in question strolled out with all the swagger and confidence of an affluent man about town. That posh air was directly at odds with his threadbare shirt, baggy jeans, and skinny teen-aged form.

“Ah, the heady vigour of youth…” Scott said enthusiastically, stretching his arms out. “I’m a teen again, hooray! Let me enjoy it for these first few minutes before I remember how much I hate it.”

Harry shrugged, unmoved by Scott’s complaints. “It’s got to be better than ageing up. What if you had to be sixty years old for this mission?”

“Then they’d get an older Kharadjai and I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit,” Scott said cheerfully. “Can’t be done, my clueless friend.”

Harry bristled a bit at the ‘clueless’ part. If he was clueless, it was only because Scott was so full of shite. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve never _been_ sixty before. How can I make myself an age I haven’t been?”

“How do you make yourself younger? I don’t sodding know!” Harry spat out.

“Wow… Relax, man.”

Harry sighed. “…Sorry.”

“You’re all bent out of shape ‘cause of everyone waiting at The Burrow, I know.” Scott walked over towards the kitchen, patting Harry on the back a little too hard to be sympathetic. “Don’t worry! You’re only facing the unbridled wrath and disappointment of everyone in your life who cares about you.”

Harry winced; he couldn’t help himself. Scott had slid neatly back into teen form, and with it, being a complete arsehole. Harry’s only consolation was that Scott wouldn’t be walking away untouched. “Some of your Primes aren’t going to be happy with _you_ , either.”

“Yes, which is why I plan on throwing you to the wolves and then hiding.” Scott grabbed a banana off the table and stuffed half of it into his mouth. “Thall weh go?” he mumbled through the partially chewed mess.

Harry followed Scott out the door and through the narrow corridor. Lila was waiting by the car outside, appearing more than a little impatient. Scott had taken his time whilst reassuming his teenage form.

“It’s not a good sign when you take longer to get dressed than your sister,” Lila informed Scott as they approached.

“But it _is_ a good sign when that’s because you wear way more clothing than that sister, who dresses like a tramp,” Scott retorted with great cheer.

Lila was wearing a pale green shirt and a pair of jeans that did flatter her form, but were not even close to being revealing. Scott was just getting in his jabs wherever he could, regardless of whether they were fitting.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be working. Lila glared daggers at Scott. “Get in the car and shut up. If I have to play ‘older-sister-slash-guardian’ again, then you’re gonna listen to me.”

Scott opened his mouth for what would have no doubt been a defiant rejoinder; Harry elbowed him in the side first. “Shut it,” he muttered to the Kharadjai. “I just want to get this over with.”

“‘Things you don’t want to hear during your first sexual encounter’,” Scott quipped, but he must have taken the hint. He left Lila alone during the short car ride to The Burrow, which was a blessing. Harry didn’t need Scott antagonising Lila, as well. There were enough angry people to be dealt with.

The car was only able to make it halfway up the overgrown path before a newly fallen tree blocked the way. Lila slammed the shift into park with a grumpy expression, eyeballing the dead tree as if it were a personal offence to her. “Hold on,” she said shortly, opening her door.

“Give us a minute to move this thing,” Scott said, following Lila out of the vehicle.

Harry was slightly offended that he hadn’t been asked to help. He wasn’t a Kharadjai, sure, but he wasn’t a total weakling either. At the very least he might have moved some of the branches. He crossed his arms and settled in to wait. With the engine shut off, the siblings were close enough that he could easily hear their conversation.

“So is there a reason why you’re especially mad at me today?” Scott asked as he grabbed the side of the trunk opposite of Lila.

“I didn’t say I was mad at you.” Lila heaved upwards, standing a large section of the tree on end. She knocked it back over, off the path, where it made a deep thump and shook the car a little.

“You never do. You just glare at me and expect me to read your mind,” Scott said.

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”

“Do too.”

“We’re not doing this. I refuse,” Lila stated.

“Fine, then just tell me what’s wrong.”

Lila narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe it’s that time of the month. You usually love that excuse; you assign it to every little thing.”

Scott shrugged. “Is it?”

“That's none of your business,” Lila told him.

“It is, isn’t it.”

“What did I just say?”

Scott threw up his hands in exasperation. “Then what? You’ve discovered a lifetime worth of pent-up resentment because I’m not a sister? You’re a lesbian, but you don’t know how to tell me?”

Lila merely rolled her eyes. “How you come up with this stuff, I really don’t know.”

Scott’s face took on a shrewd look. “You know what I think? I think you’re mad because I’m a teen again. I think you just settled back into being my younger sister and now you’re stuck resuming a role you don’t understand.”

“You should have been a psychologist, Scott, you’re so damn smart,” Lila said scathingly.

“I bet I’m right.”

“Too bad you’ll never know,” Lila said dismissively, and went back to moving the tree.

Scott retreated back to the car, leaving Lila to handle the rest of the roadblock alone. “She _must_ be in a bad mood,” he confided to Harry. “She won’t even tell me if I’m right.”

“Probably because it’s already making you mental,” Harry said dryly.

“I am right! You’ll see.”

Harry only shrugged in response, far too worried about his own problems to care. He was still lacking any ideas as to what he might say to defuse the situation. All he had was the honest answer: he had refused to play along with the Order’s plan to put themselves in harm’s way for him. But that wasn’t a response which would placate anyone.

Lila seemed calmer when she re-entered the vehicle and started it up again. She made no comment regarding Scott’s suppositions, instead speaking to Harry. “It might be better if you talked to Ginny first. She’s been on edge since you took off.”

“I’d supposed as much,” Harry sighed.

The Burrow appeared between the trees as Lila drove down the bumpy path towards the garage. She couldn’t park inside of it, not even with the loss of the old Ford Anglia. Mr Weasley had expanded his collection of Muggle odds and ends to the point that there was hardly standing room inside the small structure.

“She’s probably up in her room,” Lila told Harry, her eyes a bit fuzzy and distant. Harry recognised the same look as having been worn by Scott whenever he was examining the shape, that odd aspect of the universe that only the two Kharadjai seemed to experience directly. “I’ll run interference as long as I can. Go upstairs and talk to her — quietly, if you can manage that.”

The car jolted slightly as Lila put it into park outside of the garage. She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked backwards at Harry. “The other Primes don’t need any real explanation. What will you tell everyone else?”

“Er… How about, that I called you and you came and picked me up that night? Without knowing about the whole Order thing. You didn’t know. And I called you early, so you were already close when the Order showed up, and I just went to you instead,” Harry said, inventing what he thought was a fairly plausible excuse.

“Keep it simple,” Lila warned. “Don’t dig yourself any deeper. You called me, I offered you a ride. But leave out the stuff about me meeting you at your house. There wasn’t any time for that.”

“She’s right,” Scott said, speaking up for the first time. He had been sulking after Lila’s refusal to engage him. “You went out the window and called Lila later that night from a payphone. She came and got you somewhere else.”

“That doesn’t explain the grenade, though,” Harry pointed out.

“Yeah. But unless you know of a very similar spell, there aren’t any convincing explanations. Either me or Lil gave you that grenade just in case you got in trouble, because we have Muggle stuff like that, which is dangerously close to the truth — or, you have no idea. You weren’t around to see it, you know nothing about it.”

Harry was sceptical. “That’s a bit of a stretch, isn't it?”

Scott nodded glumly. “Then you got it from one of us. Who?”

“You,” Harry told him. “You’re daft enough to give me something like that to play with.”

That gave Scott a moment’s pause. “…Not bad, Harry. I can see that working, banking on my notoriety as a loose cannon… It could have been an early birthday gift, or my idea of a starter kit for arson.”

Of course, Scott would be perfectly willing to use his own status as a confirmed nutter for other ends. “Nobody would doubt it if I put it that way.”

“I should hope not. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Harry grimaced. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“If you get to know the twins better, don’t give them any explosives. Or guns, or anything else of that sort,” Harry pleaded.

“From what I’ve heard, seems like they’re doing just fine without any Muggle munitions,” Scott remarked.

“They are. So they don’t need anything from _you_ ,” Harry emphasised.

Scott sighed heavily. “Have it your way. But if the opportunity arises to arm them against the Death Eaters—”

“Then we’ll talk about it,” Harry quickly interjected.

Lila opened her door and motioned towards The Burrow. “All decided?”

Harry braced himself as best he could, gathering his courage. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

It was hard to reconcile the dread he was feeling with the familiar shape of The Burrow. He usually wanted to be there more than anything, he looked forward to it even more than Hogwarts. And part of him still did. That part was waiting for everything to blow over so he could relax again in the company of his _real_ family. Realistically, he knew that would happen. Either he or Scott or time would smooth things over, relegating his dash from the Dursleys’ into memory.

But not soon enough for his liking.

“Molly is in the kitchen,” Lila was saying as they approached. “Ron and Hermione are also inside somewhere. When we go in, I’ll cut right to distract Molly, Scott will keep Ron and Hermione where they are and you will go up to Ginny.”

“It’d be nice if you could not tell them I’m talking with Ginny,” Harry said nervously.

“That might actually be the only thing to keep them away,” Scott noted.

Lila swatted at him, though he dodged. “No, Scott. Don’t bring it up unless you have no choice.”

“Like that’s going to be easy? The first thing they’ll ask is where Harry is!” Scott protested.

Lila gave him a look that could only be described as frostbitten. “You wondered why I’m mad at you? Well, guess what, now you’re on the right track because when you’re a teen _you can’t do anything!_ You just gripe about it! My **actual** brother would have just nodded and handled this crap, but instead I get a whiny little brat who sticks me with all the work!”

Harry quickly backed away from the two of them. There seemed to be a built-up grievance, and he had no intention of getting in the way.

Scott scoffed at her. “Whatever, Lil. All you did is sit around The Burrow and stuff your fat ass with cookies and fudge. So sorry you got stuck with that end of the ‘work’.”

There was a second where Harry was pretty sure that Lila was going to attack Scott (and, given Scott's teen form, Harry reckoned she would win, which he would sort of like to see). After standing motionless in a tense silence, she seemed to draw her professionalism around herself, and turned towards Harry.

“Come on, Harry,” she said levelly. “Try to be quick.”

“You’re in for it later,” Harry muttered as he bypassed Scott.

“You’re in for it _now_ ,” Scott shot back.

Lila opened the front door without knocking; apparently, she had been present often enough that she had become excluded from the protections on the house. She immediately diverted to the right, where Harry could hear Mrs Weasley moving about the kitchen.

“Hi, Molly,” Lila said, growing distant. Harry went rapidly for the stairs, barely paying attention as Scott peeled off and headed for the living room. Harry hoped that Lila had been right, and Ginny was in her room. He didn’t want to have to go looking for her, not with everyone else around.

Her door was shut. Harry took a deep breath, and knocked.

“What is it now, Mum?” Ginny called out, sounding exasperated. “I’m right in the middle of—” She opened the door and immediately fell silent.

“Hi, Gin,” Harry said meekly. She stared back at him. “Uh… What were you in the middle of?”

She grabbed his arm, hauled him inside, shut the door, and kissed him soundly.

Then she pulled away and smacked him on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Harry yelped. It hadn’t really hurt, but he thought maybe if he showed some sign of pain it would lessen her anger.

“Harry James Potter! You scared the shite out of me!” Ginny lambasted him, face flushed. “What were you thinking? Where did you go?”

“I’ll explain, just keep it down,” Harry shushed her, glancing nervously at the door. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

That seemed to mollify her slightly. “So talk.”

“Well… The Order had a really bad plan to get me out of the Dursleys’ house. It was stupid and dangerous and so I… I just had Scott take me. In a car.”

“In a car,” she repeated, her eyes dangerously alight. “In a Muggle car with half the Death Eaters in Britain chasing after you.”

Obviously, someone had told her about the Death Eaters. “They weren’t chasing us. I mean, they _were_ , but we lost them really early on.” Harry decided to gloss over the petrol station incident, at least until later.

Ginny’s expression was not promising. “Right. Of course you lost them. Why wouldn’t you, in a Muggle car, with just Scott, leaving the Order and all your friends behind without telling them where you were going or letting them protect you in _any way_ whilst a _sodding car and whatever **Scott** has was plenty safe and **not stupid or dangerous at all**_.”

Harry flinched. “Come on, there were loads of Death Eaters around, you wouldn’t want Ron and Hermione, or Fred and George, or Bill, going out against them…”

“Why wouldn’t they? Because they shouldn’t be allowed to help you? Because we’re all so _safe_ anyway?” Ginny said scathingly. “If I were there, would you have left me behind? Wait, stupid question. You’ll leave _me_ behind for just about anything!”

Harry was trying to keep his cool but she was making it impossible; he never could remain impassive around her. “I couldn’t let them start a battle right in the middle of the bloody suburb!”

“Right, so you reckoned Scott would kill them somewhere else instead. Never mind that he’s just one person, never mind that he’s more interested in killing people than saving you—”

That sparked Harry’s temper. “I don’t need to be saved!”

“We all need help, Harry, _especially_ you!”

Harry threw out his hands. “And he helped me. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem,” Ginny hissed through clenched teeth, “is that you had an entire bloody house full of your friends and family and you went and ran off with the least reliable bloke we know _without telling any of us a bloody thing!_ ” There was fear behind the anger in her eyes, bringing Harry up short. “I was scared, I didn’t know where you were.”

“I left a note…” Harry countered feebly.

Ginny turned away and flopped onto her bed, burying her face into one of her pillows. “A note that didn’t tell us anything except that you were with Scott, like that was supposed to be comforting,” she said, voice muffled.

Harry awkwardly fidgeted in place for a moment before seating himself next to her. It felt faintly forbidden to be anywhere near Ginny’s bed, and now he was sitting on it. He tried not to get distracted. “It was the truth, at least,” he said.

Ginny rolled over, staring at her ceiling. “…He got you out in one piece,” she admitted, sounding like it pained her to do so. “I guess that’s a point for him.”

“He can be difficult, yeah, but… He’s not a bad bloke. He just wants to help, even if he doesn’t always go about it, uh…” Harry was unable to find the right word.

Ginny sighed. “God, Harry. You about made me sick with worrying. I never wanted to be like my mum, either, you know. Always worrying about things, nagging to cover it up.”

“I think I’ve made both of you worry more than you should ever have to,” Harry said quietly.

“Ugh.” Ginny made a noise of disgust, sitting up. “Now I’ve sent you on another Harry Potter Guilt Trip. This is my room, in case you forgot, and it’s a no-brooding area.”

“Sorry.”

“At least it’s easy to get an apology when you’re like this.” Ginny wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him again. “Like I said, no brooding in here. You’ll have to find something else to do on my bed…” she murmured against his lips.

Harry was once again painfully aware that he was sitting on Ginny’s bed. In her room, with the door closed. “Such as?” he said, heart pounding.

“This is a good start,” she said, running her tongue across his lower lip.

They couldn’t do this, not now, Harry knew, even as he kissed her hard. Lila and Mrs Weasley were in the kitchen, and Scott was doing something or the other downstairs to delay Hermione, and neither of them could keep it up forever. Harry reckoned he had minutes, at most, before someone came upstairs to see where he’d gone. He was definitely making the most of it. Too bad being caught in such a compromising position was the last thing he needed (though if it was by Mrs Weasley then he wouldn’t have to worry about Voldemort or the Horcruxes anymore, because he’d be dead).

With a superhuman application of will, Harry extracted himself from their rapidly escalating snog. “We can’t!” he gasped, barely preventing an almost involuntary return to Ginny’s lips. “Scott and Lila are downstairs, and—”

“Scott!” Ginny’s eyes flared and she pushed off of Harry’s lap. She stormed towards the door. “Where is that sodding wan—”

Harry leapt forward and pulled her back with a full-body hug. “We can’t all have a big row, either! Your mum doesn’t know, Ginny, she doesn’t know about Scott!”

Ginny seethed and struggled against his grip, but he wouldn’t relent. “Fine!” she said. “Tell him to come up here, I’ll talk to him in private!”

“Gin, if I go back downstairs your mum and Hermione are going to corner me and you know it.”

“What am I supposed to do, then? Just let him get away with it?”

“Get away with what? With helping me? He got me out of the effing Dursleys’, I’d say that’s a good job all around…” Harry said defensively.

That gave Ginny a moment’s pause, seeing as how she had conceded the same point shortly before. “Well…”

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” Harry told her, though he tensed a bit when he remembered that his wish hadn’t entirely come true. “It was the only way.”

“Really,” Ginny said shortly. “What about Scott’s stupid Apparating, or whatever it is he does to get around? Why didn’t he just do that?”

Harry didn’t have an answer to that question, so he had to guess. “I dunno… The shape probably wasn’t right, or something.”

“The shape, the shape, the bloody shape,” Ginny huffed, wriggling free of Harry’s grasp. “That’s his excuse for everything, isn’t it?”

Admittedly, it sort of was. “You can always ask him.” Harry’s eyes widened a fraction when he realised his mistake. “Later, though. And… calmly.”

Ginny flopped back down onto Harry’s lap. “He won’t tell me anything, you know that.”

Harry thought that Scott would be much more likely to explain things to Ginny if she just asked him instead of being so confrontational. But he kept that to himself. “Then I’ll tell you.”

Ginny twisted her neck around to look at him. “Instead of trying to chuck me and not tell me anything at all? That’s a switch.”

He deserved that. “Sorry. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Ginny said, picking herself up and reversing to straddle him. “So let’s get back to snogging, shall we…”

Oh, that was marvellous idea. But even as her lips closed over his, Harry was feeling like they could be intruded upon at any second. In fact, it was a bloody miracle that nobody had walked in yet. Scott and Lila must have been working overtime downstairs.

“Lila can only delay your mum for so long,” Harry said, turning his head so that Ginny’s lips pressed against his cheek. “And Scott probably has his hands full with Hermione. I’m surprised no one’s come up yet, to be honest.”

Ginny sighed. “If you _really_ want to stop that badly…”

He didn’t. He really, really didn’t. “No, but if your mum—”

“Right, I know.” She stood up. “No point in waiting.” 

***---~**~---*** 

Hermione had been comfortably ensconced on the sofa with Ron (though not in an especially intimate fashion, not with Mrs Weasley about) when her thoughts were interrupted by a noise at the door. Someone had arrived at The Burrow, if the stamping feet at the entryway were any indication.

Ron perked up next to her, where he had been lightly dozing. “You think that’s…?”

“It might be!” Hermione said, feeling hopeful that she might soon be seeing Harry, alive and intact. “We should…”

She trailed off when Scott waltzed into the room like he owned the place.

“Oh, hello,” Scott said dully, as if they were distant acquaintances.

Hermione wasn’t playing along. “Scott. Have a seat.”

She intended to get some answers, but Ron was less interested in Scott’s presence. “Hey, where’s Harry?”

Scott slumped in one of the armchairs, putting his feet up on a small table (and getting away with it only because Mrs Weasley wasn’t there to see). “He’s upstairs with Ginny.”

Ron flushed red. “Are you—! You’d better be joking.”

Scott slowly shook his head. “Nope. Hermione, be a good Prime and prevent your significant other from interrupting Harry.”

Although she chafed at Scott’s deliberate needling, Hermione knew he was still correct. “Ron, it’s all right. They have some things they need to sort out.”

“Right,” Ron snorted. “ _Things_ to sort out. Alone, in her bedroom. After Harry chucked her. And I’m just supposed to sit on my arse and ignore it?”

“Uh… Yes,” Scott told him with a sarcastic undertone. “That’s about right. Good summary, very succinct.”

“Sod off,” Ron retorted hotly. “Not like this is any of your business!”

“Not yours, either, bucko,” Scott replied laconically.

Hermione knew she needed to keep Ron calm, and Scott wasn’t helping in the slightest. She kept a firm grip on Ron’s arm. “Ron, please. Harry and Ginny need to work this out on their own. I know you’re just being protective, but that’s not what Ginny needs right now. She’s had enough of that from Harry.”

“I… Yeah, I know,” Ron muttered, subsiding. “I told Harry I wasn’t angry anymore, but… that was before he went right up to her room!”

“They’re just talking, Ron,” Hermione assured him whilst fervently hoping that was the case.

“And maybe fucking, if they can multi-task,” Scott added unhelpfully.

To Ron’s credit, he didn’t rise to the bait. His cheeks flushed a bit darker, but he merely responded with a terse, “Shut it.”

Hermione glared at Scott. She didn’t know what his problem was; from the second he’d walked in the room, he’d been nothing but mean-spirited and aloof. He was looking blankly back at her, a combative spark in his eye. At that moment, Hermione realised that she didn’t care enough to batter at his defences. Whatever answers Scott held, they could wait until he was no longer in such a hostile mood.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Hermione said to Ron while watching Scott carefully. “I left a book up there. It’s a bit stuffy in here, anyway.”

Ron looked surprised, but didn’t object. “Sure, if you want.”

Hermione ignored Scott as she traipsed out of the room. The Kharadjai made no move to follow them. Hermione liked to think he was stunned by her sudden departure, sans interrogation, but that was a bit optimistic. Scott was difficult to read, even in his more volatile teen form.

As they passed the kitchen, Hermione saw Lila there with Mrs Weasley. They were conversing over their food preparations.

“—I understand that he needs to explain himself, dear, but I would like to hear what he has to say as well!” Mrs Weasley was saying.

“You know how kids are when they’re in trouble. Harry wants to try his luck with Ron and Hermione first.” Lila was speaking to Mrs Weasley and facing the doorway. Whilst Mrs Weasley was distracted with chopping vegetables, Lila shot a quick glare at Hermione, coupled with a hand gesture that clearly meant to stay out of sight.

Hermione swiftly stepped back, pulling Ron with her. If Lila was telling Mrs Weasley that Harry was with them instead of Ginny, then being seen without him would be very bad, indeed.

Mrs Weasley sighed. “I suppose he would. Thank you for looking after him, reckless though he was.”

“It wasn’t a problem. He can pay me back for gas money, and we’ll be even,” Lila said wryly.

“I wish you had been here when Arthur and the boys came back, along with the rest,” Mrs Weasley said, shaking her head. “I about lost my head, it was such a fuss! They were half hoping that Harry was already here, but of course he was nowhere to be found, and the Order didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m not sure what help I’d have been,” Lila replied.

Mrs Weasley chuckled fondly. “You’re the very definition of grace under pressure, dear. I’ll wager you barely blinked when Harry rang you in the middle of the night. Someday you’ll have to tell me which side of your family that calm comes from — I do wish you’d smile a bit more, though.” Lila must have smiled at that, because Mrs Weasley exclaimed, “There, see? Such a lovely face, I don’t understand how you haven't had any admirers calling at your flat.”

“I’m not at my flat. I’m over here,” Lila pointed out.

“You haven’t been at home much, that’s true. Oh, and with the wedding all the rooms will be filled…” Mrs Weasley fretted.

“I’ll take the couch,” Lila offered.

“But what about your brother, dear?”

“He’ll take the floor. And he won’t complain about it, either.”

Hermione peeked around the corner; Mrs Weasley was shaking her head. “I think you’re a bit hard on him,” she said.

“Only because he hasn’t been around here,” Lila countered.

Hermione took the opportunity presented and darted through the doorway and up the stairs whilst Mrs Weasley had her back turned. As she ascended with Ron, she heard what sounded like a large pot or pan hit the floor, followed by Lila apologising. The Kharadjai woman was neatly covering any sounds made by the creaky steps.

Lila had taken her integration at The Burrow just about as far as Scott had at Hogwarts, Hermione noted. Mrs Weasley seemed completely accustomed to Lila’s presence, and had acted in an almost motherly fashion. Molly Weasley was a very caring woman, and Hermione herself had been on the receiving end of her maternal instinct on more than one occasion. It made sense that she had taken to Lila in that manner, especially as Lila didn’t have much in the way of family.

That concerned Hermione. Mrs Weasley didn’t know about any of Lila’s underlying motivations. Hermione couldn’t even be sure that the friendship was genuine on Lila’s part. Scott and Lila had both come across as very calculating on numerous occasions, but at least Scott had done his manipulations from a position of (semi) honesty.

Further up the stairs, Ginny’s door was still closed. When Hermione drew closer, she could hear voices inside, especially Ginny’s. She didn’t sound pleased, and Harry’s muffled replies were defensive in tone.

“See? They’re having a row, nothing more,” Hermione said to Ron.

“Good. She can be shirty with someone else for a change,” Ron grunted.

Hermione gave him a look of reproof that he probably didn’t notice. “You brought that on yourself.”

Ron didn’t answer, instead turning to enter his room. Hermione knew he was having a hard time reconciling his position as Harry’s best mate and his role as Ginny’s older brother. She felt a bit bad reminding him of his earlier overreaction, but it really was his own fault. She just hoped that Ron would become more comfortable with the situation in time. Not that Harry was helping; his ambivalence only confused things further. Ron needed a clear signal that Harry was sticking with Ginny for good.

Hermione went to follow Ron, pausing to cast a nervous glance back down the stairs. She didn’t like the idea of leaving Scott to his own devices in The Burrow, especially when he seemed to be in a difficult temper.

As she was hesitating, Ginny’s door opened and Harry emerged. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Hermione. He had clearly not expected anyone to be outside.

Ginny squeezed past his still form and smiled at Hermione. “He’s here, and he’s fine,” she said, indicating Harry. “Physically, anyway. Who knows where his head’s at.”

“Thanks, Gin,” Harry sighed. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “All right. Have at it,” he said to Hermione.

Hermione frowned. “You _want_ me to shout at you?”

“Of course I don’t, but I knew when I came over that you were going to be angry.”

“Yes, because I have a reputation for being unintelligent,” Hermione responded sarcastically. “You really believe I didn’t know where you'd gone? I knew you weren’t coming back when you ran up the stairs, Harry. You can be very predictable.”

“I…” Harry looked dumbfounded. “You knew? And you didn’t say anything?”

Clearly, Harry hadn’t thought it through. “Not with everyone else there. I knew that Scott had to be around, and that’s not something we talk about with the Order,” Hermione explained.

“Yeah. Sorry for, er… assuming. I should have known you’d suss me out quick enough,” Harry said sheepishly.

“I can’t say I was happy about it,” Hermione was quick to point out. “But I understand.”

“I guess I do, too,” Ron said, coming up behind her. He was looking back and forth between Harry and Ginny; Harry was avoiding his gaze, and Ginny was staring back defiantly. “Well, come on, then,” Ron said after a moment. “You’ve got to tell us what happened, mate.”

Harry appeared to be immensely relieved. “Sure, of course.”

Hermione followed them into their room, glad that Ron hadn’t decided to cause a scene. He sometimes managed to surprise her in the best of ways. He would work things out with Harry soon enough. Whether he would be on better terms with Ginny in the near future remained to be seen.

As she seated herself at the foot of Ron’s bed, Hermione made a mental note to check on Scott after Harry was done relating the details of his flight from the Dursleys’. She didn’t want the Kharadjai causing any trouble whilst everyone else was occupied.

***---~**~---***  

Scott was bored.

Hermione had left, depriving him of the opportunity to snipe at her. Lila was busy in the kitchen with Mrs Weasley, and even in his teen form Scott knew better than to interrupt. That wouldn’t end well for him.

His major Primes were all safe and working out their own problems upstairs. Neville was virtually untouchable in his fortress of a house. Luna was still a concern, but she had sufficient magical protections around her home to be relatively safe. At the very least, there were enough wards at the Lovegood residence to give Scott time to show up if something should happen.

He would have liked to go check on her, regardless. Staking out Luna’s house would give him something to do until the wedding. And if the Death Eater he’d seen before came back around, that would also be a welcome diversion. Before, he’d let the man go on the basis of not drawing further attention to Luna. Once Luna was back at Hogwarts (or staying at The Burrow, a thought that sent him on a mental tangent, trying to piece together how that might work) he’d be free to make an example. Perhaps he might send the Death Eater’s head to Riddle in the mail?

He made a face, unhappy with that idea. Too cliché.

It didn’t matter. He was stuck at The Burrow in his teen form. Lila had volunteered to assist in the preparations for the upcoming festivities, which meant Scott wouldn’t be going back to the flat any time soon, either. Not unless he ran back by himself with an appropriate excuse.

What the hell was he going to _do?_

He glanced over at the empty chessboard near the fireplace, silently willing someone to come along and sit down in one of the chairs. Chess had never been his game, but it would be a diversion. Nobody showed up, of course. He couldn’t will someone into appearing. He was being silly.

Silly. Teen form. _Damn it._

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Over the course of the day he’d pissed off Harry, Lila, Hermione and Ron, and if he didn’t get a hold of himself the list would only continue to grow. He needed a priority.

Surely there was _something_ that required his attention.

But as he sat in his chair and scanned the empty living room, not a single thing came to mind. There wasn’t even any classwork to revise. He couldn’t leave the house to harass the Death Eaters or snoop around for Horcrux clues. Everyone in the house was either angry with him or had no cause for interaction.

He stood up decisively, hoping that the act would provide inspiration. Stretching his arms, he strode over to one of the windows, which offered no insight into anything other than the woods surrounding the property. It was over that way where he had given Harry and Ron an impromptu lesson in handguns the year before; he wondered if he could still find the brass.

Also somewhere in those woods was the invisible line of the magical protections. Perhaps he should use the opportunity to examine them further? He might learn something useful… Or he might break something he shouldn’t have been messing with in the first place. The vast majority of magic remained unfathomable to him, and there was no reason to think the property wards would be any different.

He angrily paced away from the window. If a swarm of Death Eaters attacked The Burrow, he knew what to do. But he was simply not equipped to _wait_ as a teen. What year was it? ‘97? He could buy some video games, he supposed. The first-generation 3D games were rudimentary at best, but that didn’t mean they weren’t fun.

That was just one of his hobbies (he had many). For most of them, he’d need Muggle money. And since his sister was holding the purse strings, and was currently quite pissed off, he wasn’t going to get it through official channels; a method which was frowned upon and at least slightly illegal, but he’d slipped in plenty of ‘personal expenses’ before. Primares were kept on a very loose leash, and it was understood that their small appropriations requests didn’t endure much scrutiny. He could go out to eat pretty much anywhere on the company dime so long as he took Primes with him. ‘Integration’ covered a wide array of activities (and sins).

Now he was paying the price for going deep cover as a teen and leaving Lila in charge of appropriations. And the price was steep, indeed. He’d figure it out later, though. The mission came first; he just needed to recognise which portion of the mission he should attend to.

He headed for the back door. At the very least, he could patrol the boundaries of the Weasley property and pretend like he was doing something important.

Outside, the air was warm, stirred by intermittent breezes and filled with the gentle rustling of leaves and grass. The sun was just starting to set, still high in the sky but dipping towards the western horizon. On a whim, Scott marched off in that direction. It seemed like as good a place as any to start.

The boundaries of the Weasley property ran uniformly through woodland, and it was not a symmetrical border. Although the magical barriers never bent smoothly (Scott wasn’t sure why, save for the uninformed guess that curved geometry was impossible, or at least difficult), they still angled outwards and inwards at various intervals. As he walked along the edge of the invisible line, he swerved often to avoid trees and the changing extent.

The land owned by the Weasleys was not perfectly rectangular. Scott wondered if the wards followed the exact contours of the plot, or if there were geological constraints to barrier creation that he was not aware of. Despite a year at Hogwarts, when it came to magic it generally seemed he was aware of very little.

A tall, hollowed-out stump caught his attention near the northwest corner. The remains of what had once been a large tree rested at the bottom of a slight hill, hiding it from view. Scott smiled when he peered inside. A variety of Muggle beer tins and Firewhiskey bottles had been tossed inside of it, jumbled together with the old leaves. Whose spot was it? Bill’s? Charlie’s? The twins'? Most likely all of the above. Ron would no doubt be added to the list soon enough, if he hadn’t already. A few yards away, a slightly worn section of bark and a defoliated patch of dirt marked what was clearly the pissing tree. Scott made his way over, unzipped, and added his part to the legacy.

Farther south, Scott was struck again by how green everything was. The last time of any length he had spent in woodland had been on Silva Greater, now that he thought about it. That had been in a hilly region where the soil was thick with dark clay. Everything else had followed suit, colour-wise. He had been in the English woods before, of course. It had just been a while.

“Crap,” Scott said absently as a stick poked him sharply in the leg, reminding him to watch where he was going.

He tried to focus, but when the next few hundred feet of ground failed to yield anything more interesting than sticks and leaves, he knew it was a lost cause. He couldn’t spend the remainder of his time at The Burrow wandering around the edges of the property. Now and then, fine, patrolling was good for safety. But he would have to find other things to occupy the rest of his time.

He turned and went back toward the house, dragging his feet a little. Even if his sister or some of his Primes wanted to fight, he was no longer feeling up to it. Maybe he’d crash on the couch and sleep away the afternoon. The closer he was to The Burrow, the more appealing that seemed.

His rendezvous with some couch cushions was immediately delayed when he set foot on the front walk. It seemed he could leave The Burrow without assistance, but entering was another matter. The door refused to budge when he tried to turn the handle.

He loosed a long sigh of defeat, raising his hand to knock. Lila was going to love this.

Then he paused, stopping his hand just before touching the door. Something wasn’t right. No… not necessarily _wrong_ , but something was different. Something was new. Some _one_ was new?

He glanced back towards the garage. Lila’s car was still the only one parked there, and there weren’t any new tire tracks. Wizarding visitors, obviously. Or maybe visitor. The shape was not being especially helpful.

He could help himself if he could just get back inside. Frustrated with the magic that confounded him yet again, he banged on the door a bit harder than necessary.

It took a long moment, but it was Lila who eventually answered. “There you are,” she said, looking down at him. With the aid of the doorstep, she was almost half a foot higher up than him and clearly enjoying the vista.

“Who’s here?” Scott asked, brushing past her.

“The Minister. He showed up a few minutes ago and cornered all the Primes in the living room.”

That was not what Scott had expected to hear. “The _Minister?”_

“Yeah, I know.”

Lila might have said more, but Mrs Weasley hurried into view from the kitchen, throwing worried looks towards the living room. “Scott, there you are! Minister Scrimgeour was asking after you, dear. Where were you?”

“I went out for a walk,” Scott explained.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea these days, it’s not safe to go out alone,” Mrs Weasley said chidingly. She gave Lila a meaningful look.

“Yes, that was not a good idea at all,” Lila said severely, taking the cue and jumping right into her rarely exercised parenting façade. “Don’t go out without telling someone first.”

Scott clenched his jaw hard and nodded in response, not trusting himself to speak. Letting Lila boss him around went against every familial fibre in his body.

“I mean it. And don’t think you can just not say anything so later you can claim you never agreed, buster,” Lila warned.

She was really pushing her luck. “I get it,” Scott said shortly.

“Then go talk to the Minister, we’re keeping him waiting.”

Scott went to the living room, wondering why his presence had been requested. Harry, sure, of course Scrimgeour would want to see him. But Scott had only met the man once, at Dumbledore’s funeral, and it hadn’t been a very polite encounter. If the topic had come up prior to the Minister’s arrival, Scott would have doubted that Scrimgeour even remembered him.

Inside the room, Harry, Hermione and Ron were squished together on the sofa. Scrimgeour had commandeered the chair that Scott had been sitting in earlier. Ginny was sitting on the arm of the couch, next to Harry. Harry’s arm was wrapped firmly around her waist in a supportive gesture. Scott smiled as he slipped to the side and came up behind the Minister. Harry was often confused when it came to Ginny, but every now and then he was surprisingly intuitive about staying in her good graces.

Scott swiftly stepped into view and leaned back against the fireplace, crossing his arms. The gazes of his friends would alert Scrimgeour to the fact that there was someone behind him, and Scott wanted it to look like he’d been there for awhile.

Sure enough, Harry’s startled look brought Scrimgeour’s head swivelling about.

“You wanted to see me?” Scott drawled nonchalantly.

The Minister was tall and rangy, with hair that reminded Scott of a large cat. He had the sort of hard, line-etched face that came from a lifetime of scowling. No doubt his Ministry ran on threats as well as incentives. Scrimgeour might have been an intimidating man if Scott were the sort to be intimidated. The Minister for Magic was clearly a forceful character, and possibly someone to be reckoned with.

The Minister’s eyes were an interesting colour, and very focussed. Scott met them coolly, affecting a pose of indifference. “Scott Kharan?” Scrimgeour said roughly, seeming like he wasn’t expecting an answer. “I believe we’ve met before.”

So Scott _had_ been remembered. Should he reciprocate? …No. It was more fun not to. “Have we?” Scott asked, frowning.

“Yes. At Headmaster Dumbledore’s funeral. You were especially adamant about saving a row of seats.” Scrimgeour’s eyes were hard and unfriendly.

Scott shrugged. “I don’t recall.”

Scrimgeour clearly did not believe him. “Really. Then perhaps you’ll recall which possessions Dumbledore would have been most likely to leave to you?”

“It’s Dumbledore’s will,” Harry interrupted, leaning to the side to look around the Minister. “He… He left us things.”

Scott had been so caught up in baiting Scrimgeour that he hadn’t taken a closer look at his Primes. All of them looked stricken in various degrees; Hermione had obviously been tearful not long before Scott’s entrance, and was leaning hard against Ron’s shoulder. Scott was immediately suffused with curiosity as to what they had each received, but it could wait. If he was understanding the slant of the conversation correctly, he had been left something as well?

“Dumbledore accorded something to me?” Scott asked, letting his surprise show.

“He did.” Scrimgeour reached down near his feet and picked up what appeared to be a steel cube, a little over one square foot in volume. It must not have been heavy, since he lifted it with ease.

Scott left his spot by the fireplace and crossed over to the couch, peering at the cube with fascination.

Scrimgeour held it out slightly, but made no move to give it to Scott. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a cube,” Scott said blandly, still studying it.

Scrimgeour’s eyes narrowed. “More specifically?”

“It’s a symmetrical object. It has six square facets. You could also call it a regular hexahedron.”

“I’m not amused by your games anymore than I am by Mr Potter’s,” Scrimgeour said coldly. “This is a magical strongbox. It is heavily enchanted in such a way that it requires a password.”

“Then it must be a long password. Dumbledore’s funeral was awhile ago; obviously you haven’t had much luck at brute forcing it,” Scott said dryly.

“They haven’t,” Harry said with hint of maliciousness. “Not with any of our gifts.”

Scott raised his hands helplessly. “Cryptography isn’t my area of expertise…”

Scrimgeour’s fury was plainly apparent. “This came with the strongbox. What does it mean to you?”

Scott took the envelope. Inside was a short piece of paper with only two, neatly printed words:

sock drawer

Scott lowered the paper and raised an eyebrow at Scrimgeour. “Did you try ‘sock drawer’?” When the Minister merely glared in response, Scott added in a more hostile tone, “I’m assuming you already ransacked a dead man’s sock drawer. Find anything incriminating? Did he not wash his socks regularly?”

“We did what we deemed necessary to prevent powerful magical objects from entering the wrong hands,” Scrimgeour bit out. “It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t understand that, if you’ve been spending time in Potter’s company. There are a great many things he doesn’t understand.”

Harry immediately leaned forward to retort, but Scott beat him to it. “Looks like you’ve had some rousing success, for sure. You kept that cube from me for a whole — what? A month and change?”

Scrimgeour was incensed. “You need to switch your tone, boy, and learn a little respect—”

“Is it a dangerous cube? Are the edges _sharp?”_ Scott interrupted, getting more than a bit angry himself.

The Minister stood up to his full height — which was considerable, as it turned out — glaring down at Scott. “If Dumbledore thought it appropriate to leave Gryffindor’s sword to a gaggle of resentful _children_ then we can only imagine what he believed should be hidden within such a strongbox! Your lack of cooperation, your _incessant_ opposition to government efforts—”

Scott cut him off again. “And you try _so_ hard, it’s good to see those tax dollars at work, but are you talking to me, or Harry?”

“I am speaking to _all_ of you. Mr Potter is merely the most stubborn and ignorant, though it appears that you are the latest of Dumbledore’s excesses to be left to me!”

“But you deal with them so gracefully.”

“Let it alone, Scott. If he can’t control us then we have no use,” Harry said, sounding sick of the entire argument.

“There’s a line between control and guidance, unable though you are to see it,” the Minister retorted. He turned a ferocious glare on Scott. “As for you, boy, your impudence will earn you nothing but additional troubles.”

“Yeah, fuck you, too!” Scott exploded, stepping forward. “My name is **Scott** and if you call me _‘boy’_ one more time I’m gonna cram that cube right up your—”

Scrimgeour’s eyes blazed. “You arrogant, disrespectful—”

“—square peg, round hole, old man, let’s solve _that_ problem—”

“TIME OUT!”

The Minister was interrupted yet again, this time by Lila’s loud shout. All heads turned towards the door, where Lila was standing with her hands on her hips. Scott knew that was never a good pose to see. Regardless, for the first time that day, he was grateful for her interference. He was dangerously close to doing something stupid.

“If you can’t discuss this calmly, then don’t discuss it at all, and, yes, I’m talking to you, too, Minister,” Lila said sharply. Mrs Weasley hovered behind her, looking shocked. “Now if you aren’t going to be civil, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“I acted only as I was treated,” Scrimgeour nearly snarled, moving forward to dwarf Lila with his height. “I suggest you discipline your brother before someone else is forced to do it for you.”

It didn’t seem possible, but Lila’s expression somehow became even frostier. “I’ll keep that in mind. Or not. Let me show you the door.”

Scrimgeour turned his glare on Harry one last time. “Our business is _not_ concluded, Mr Potter.”

“It never is,” Harry said with disgust.

The Minister turned on his heel and brushed past Mrs Weasley with a terse, “Madame.” He didn’t acknowledge Lila.

The second the door shut behind him, Harry sank back into the couch with a sigh. Ginny turned to comfort him with a strained expression and Ron was clearly overwhelmed by what had happened, staring at the small silver device in his hand. Hermione, though, was the most conflicted. Considering she had simultaneously received a gift she didn’t understand from a dead man and watched her friends argue with the Minister for Magic, that wasn’t surprising.

Scott figured he’d better say something to Mrs Weasley. But Lila (who had been very on top of things at The Burrow, it seemed) was already doing damage control.

“I’m sorry about that, Molly. I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I guess things got out of hand,” Lila was saying.

“I just wish all this nonsense hadn’t been necessary in the first place,” the older woman sighed. “We’re supposed to be on the same side, after all.”

“The Minister doesn’t seem to understand that,” Lila told her, smoothly shifting the blame towards Scrimgeour. “Come on, let’s have a spot of tea. No point in worrying about what we can’t change.”

And just like that, the potential crisis was averted and Scott was left alone with his Primes again. He was slightly irritated that his interference hadn’t been required. “Well. That’s taken care of,” he blandly remarked.

Hermione looked at him angrily. “Where on earth were you? Of all the times to disappear!”

“Hey, cut me some slack. I showed up at a very opportune moment,” Scott said defensively.

“You should have been here to begin with,” Hermione said, but her tearful visage and hoarse voice robbed her reprimand of any bite. Instead, Scott felt like she had just wanted everyone present for moral support. He couldn’t blame her. Dumbledore’s death was still a raw wound.

“Do you know how to open that box?” Harry asked, nodding at the metal cube.

“Of course. Do you know how to do whatever it is you have to do with your… whatever it was you got?”

“He left me the first Snitch I caught,” Harry murmured, looking down at the small golden orb. “And yeah, I think I know what to do.”

“Wish I did,” Ron grunted. “Well, I suppose I do know what it does… I just don’t know what to do _with_ it.”

Harry glanced at his friend. “Use it to put out lights. We might need that to sneak around, when called for.”

Ron smiled a little. “Could have used this a few times over the years, eh? Before you got the Cloak, anyway.”

“Well, we’re a bit big for the Cloak, now. We won’t outgrow that.”

“Ginny, do you know what to do with your gift?” Hermione asked, leaning forward to see the other girl.

“No,” Ginny responded quietly.

Scott did a double take. He hadn’t even realised that Ginny had received a gift. In her hands was a blank box, like a smaller version of Scott’s own cube, though hers appeared to be made of wood.

Ginny noticed his reaction. “What? I can’t get something too?” she said defensively.

“You really need to work on those exclusion issues,” Scott told her. “I didn’t say anything like that.”

Ginny flushed. “You… Fine! There’s a note carved on the top. You’re so smart, _you_ work it out.”

She passed the box over to Scott, who examined the top section. There, in neatly carven letters, was printed:

 **something that was supposed to happen**

“Huh.” Scott was drawing a blank.

Despite her words, Ginny had looked somewhat hopeful. “Nothing?”

“Hmmm… No. Not yet, anyway. Pass it around, let everyone think it over.”

But no one else had anything to add to the discussion. Given the events of the afternoon, Scott felt that they were all most likely drained anyway. Between revisited grief and the hostility brought by the Minister, it had been quite the day for his Primes.

“Let’s sleep on it,” Scott suggested. “I don’t think we want to deal with this shit right now.”

“Agreed,” Hermione said tiredly, not even commenting on Scott’s language.

Harry wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “Why did he pick today? He could have shown up as late as he wanted, or not at all. We didn’t know anything about Dumbledore’s will.”

“He had to show up at some point, Harry. It’s illegal to withhold items from a will,” Hermione said.

“They dragged their feet for awhile and then came to us when they couldn’t figure it out.” Scott picked up his cube and spun it in his hands. “The Minister thought we might solve the puzzle for him.”

“It can’t be that puzzling if you already know how to open it,” Ron commented.

“Why? Because I’m stupid?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Fair enough. But in this case Dumbledore made sure only I would understand the clue.”

“Then what does it mean?” Harry wanted to know.

Scott was about to answer when Lila came back into the room. “Your mom wants to talk to you. Keep it simple,” she said to Ron and Ginny. “And this goes for everyone: I suggest you shelve your boxes and whatnot and get ready to work on wedding junk. I bought you as much time as you’re going to get.”

“When are we eating?” Scott immediately asked.

Lila crossed her arms. “If you pester us, never. Either be patient or go forage in the woods.”

“I think you’re taking this ‘parenting’ thing a little too close to heart,” Scott mused.

“Someone has to raise you right. Now go put your cube away and get busy, there’s a lot to do.”

Scott carried his cube upstairs, deciding to leave it in Harry and Ron’s room. He knew how to open it and wasn’t feeling any real sense of urgency to do it — instead, it was Ginny’s gift that dominated his thoughts. He had the inescapable notion that he had heard the phrase written on it before.

No doubt it would come to him in time. He only wished he knew how much time he had.


	5. The Leaving Cycle

**5**

**The Leaving Cycle**

**\---**

_Thus the road did wander to the shore_  
 _Great swells coiled forward_  
 _then washed back, thrice more_  
 _Yet, that retreat left silence, vast, unbroken_  
 _held quick in the pools of thy memory_  
 _unspoken_  
 _That windswept mire: devious, bereft!_  
 _Worn piers of disarray, black shoals,_  
 _heart's theft._  
 _Caught fast in the naught,_  
 _twixt the needle and eye_  
 _Spilled forth, still fearful_  
 _pressed low 'neath the sky_  


—Susanna B. Aether, _Still Lost, Constantia  
_ (Verse XII: lines 227—239)

**\---**

Hermione was hanging wedding decorations, and wishing that she weren't.

There were so many other activities that required her time: planning, discussing, preparing mentally and physically for the coming trials. She desperately wanted to get everyone together and go over the items left to them by Dumbledore with an eye for the slightest details; they had only brushed the surface of whatever secrets the Headmaster had wanted them to divine, she was sure of it. She also needed to work out some sort of arrangement for their leaving of The Burrow.

And they would need to leave; the sooner, the better. She only wished they didn't have to attend the wedding. Not that she wasn't looking forward to such a joyous event, and there was sure to be dancing… But, the timing left a great deal to be desired.

As did her decorating companion.

“This is FUCKED.” Scott kicked over a stool with a loud clatter, making Hermione wince. “Look at this crap. Look at it! Look at it _now_ , because nobody is even gonna bother come show time, they'll all walk through here without even noticing all the effort it took to make this room look so shitty—”

“Oh, just _stop_.” Hermione reprimanded sharply when Scott's voice began to rise. She didn't want to hear yet another blistering tirade about wedding jobs. Harry and Ron were about as unenthused, but at least they were less verbose.

“What?” he said, as if he didn't know exactly what the problem was.

“Obviously you're having issues, but we'll have even more if you start shouting.”

 _“Issues?”_ Scott mocked. “Yeah, we got issues. Issues, like, these crappy decorations, the fact we haven't had a spare minute to plan anything, the fact that even if we did I'm not sure we could get out of the house without making a scene… Also, I just stepped on this glass thing.” He pointed towards his left foot, beneath which he had broken some sort of bauble. “I'm not wearing shoes. That's an _'issue'._ Apparently, I've been scuffing the wood floors. Ask Lil, she'll tell you _all_ about it!”

Hermione sighed and motioned him towards a nearby stool she had used to reach the top of the windowsill. “You're a mess, do you know that?” She gripped Scott's ankle and lifted his foot for inspection, wrinkling her nose at the amount of blood already soaked through his sock. “ _Accio glass!_ ”

“Ow. Yes, fine, I'm a mess. Bully for me.”

“I don't think it should be a point of pride. Take that sock off before you smudge anything. And keep your voice down!” Hermione said quickly when Scott opened his mouth. “Your sister is going to come looking for you if you don't be quiet.”

“Good, when Lil comes in here I'll staple this to her forehead!” Scott bent down from his perch and snatched a length of garland off the floor, brandishing it like a weapon.

“You don't _have_ a stapler. If you did, we'd be done already,” Hermione said pointedly. Scott was supposed to be attaching the decorations to the wall with a Sticking Charm, but just about everything he tried to stick fell back to the floor.

Scott crossed his arms, dropping the garland in the process. “Rub it in, Hermione, you're a real class act. Not all of us have magic shooting out of our tits.”

Hermione coloured. “Shooting out of my—”

“Tits. T-I-T-S.”

“I'm aware of how it's spelt!” Hermione turned her back on him, moving some of her more prominent features out of his view. “Why don't we finish this so—”

Scott scoffed, disrupting her. “So Molly can give us some more busywork when she gets back? Come _on,_ we aren't doing a goddamn thing around here but running in circles. How much you wanna bet that Ron and Harry are just layin' around upstairs while we do our assigned work like a couple of gulls?”

He had a point, but she certainly wasn't going to admit it. “Whatever else there is to do, hopefully we'll be separate,” she rejoined a bit more coldly than she'd intended.

“Awwww… Don't be that way, magi-tits. You're the breast friend I've ever had.”

Hermione gritted her teeth. Scott had been a handful recently, even by his standards; he'd been short-tempered, moody and occasionally even outright hostile. His latest bout of crudity was just another symptom of whatever snit he was in, and Hermione was tired of it. She hadn't done anything wrong and she was fed up with being treated like she had.

She rounded on him. “What, exactly, is your problem?” She placed her hands on her hips and glowered.

“Wow, an open forum. Where do I start? First off, I'm fucking sick of these decorations—”

“No,” Hermione said, cutting him off.

Scott's brow creased in a threatening frown. “No?”

“No. Don't even try to misdirect me. You were in a state before we ever started putting these up.”

Scott's glare intensified. “You think so, huh.”

“I _know_ so. You've been snapping at everyone ever since the Minister left, and I for one have had enough!” She stamped her foot for emphasis, leaning towards him and glaring with all her might.

Unfortunately, whilst such an action would have impressed upon her other male friends that she was well and truly angry and it was time to be reasonable or back down, Scott was either unable or unwilling to be properly intimidated. Every furious argument with him was an escalating series of barbs, growing more hurtful with elevation.

Hermione liked debating with Scott. He always had something to say on every subject, even (especially) the ones he knew nothing about. Sorting through his slang of wildly varying origins and looking past his frequent use of cutting invectives could be difficult, but was usually worth the effort. She did _not,_ however, like fighting with him.

He still didn't seem to understand that.

Scott cast his gaze about the room, his eyes wide with mock chagrin. “Oh no, you've figured everything out. Where's Ron, I need him to shove his tongue in your mouth since you won't shut it.”

Hermione fought hard against the blush, but couldn't overcome her body's involuntary response to such a comment. “I must have figured something out if you're already resorting to crudity. You might want to work on that jealousy, it's a touch transparent,” she shot back.

Scott nodded in exaggerated acceptance. “You're right. I've been hanging decorations when what I _really_ wanted to be doing was tonguing Ron. The homoerotic angst has just been hanging over this house like a pall. Tell you what — you go out with Ginny and rug burn your mouth, and me and Ron will head upstairs for a rousing game of Butts and Weenies.”

She rolled her eyes to prevent herself from flinching at his graphic remarks. “So predictable, it's always the same with you, isn't it! I make a valid point, and you head right for the gutter!”

“You think your point about jealousy was _valid?_ Or… maybe I got the wrong idea? Should I have flipped that around, Hermione, did you mean I couldn't control my **throbbing sexual urges** for _you?”_ Scott scoffed.

The thick scorn in his tone hurt far more than his words. The implication was that he couldn't possibly find her attractive, that nobody could ever find her appealing enough to induce jealousy. He was stabbing right into her shaky self-confidence. Frigid, mousy, bushy-haired and buck-toothed Hermione. An old image, one she'd tried to shed with age. The tatters still clung to her, and maybe always would.

Intellectually, she knew that Scott was doing it deliberately. He was trying to drive her away, abandoning his more subtle manipulations for blunt trauma to the psyche, using a year's worth of profiling to push her buttons in a damaging fashion.

Emotionally, she was incensed.

Scott was still going. “Well, if you really want to, I guess I can take one for the team. You all look the same in the dark, right? Just remind me to double bag it.”

“You should be so lucky!” Hermione hissed at him, her face now flushed with rage instead of embarrassment.

“By whose definition?”

“It should be yours, by this point! At least I've been interacting with another person, the best company _you've_ had lately is—” Hermione couldn't believe what she was saying even as she finished the thought, “—your own h-hand!”

It was something similar to what Scott might have said in her situation, which was the point. Maybe she wanted to win an argument, just once, without having to stick to her moral high ground. Her continued reticence to drop to Scott's level was apparent in her revealing stutter. Despite the somewhat inept delivery, perhaps the uncharacteristic nature of the insult would be enough to shock him.

She should have known better.

“Yeah? _Yeah?!”_ There was a dangerous spark in Scott's eyes. He leapt up from the stool, smacking his injured foot onto the floor with a sound that made Hermione flinch, though he didn't even seem to notice.

What followed was far more disjointed than Scott's usual diatribes, and especially vile. “Well, what-the-fuck- _ever!_ At least I do it in the goddamn shower, that's just common fuckin' courtesy! Meanwhile, where are _you_ assholes at, in your bed, beds, plural, I'm stuck on the floor and decent enough not to streak Molly's cushions, sleeping on borrowed sheets still sticky from a bunch of frustrated teens jacking and jilling off all over the fucking place because you don't know how to fuck each other! Well, here's some advice on that front, dumpling: raise your knees, bite your pillow, and keep your fingers out of your ass! _Christ!_ ”

Hermione slapped him, hard, across the mouth.

After a moment of tense silence, she fled the room.

***---~**~---***  

Lila was in the process of baking cookies (no, _biscuits_ ) when Hermione passed through the kitchen on her way up the stairs. Her face was flushed and her eyes were moist as she rushed by. Lila placed her spatula down and watched Hermione's feet disappear into the upper reaches of The Burrow. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

It was possible that Hermione was simply experiencing the same borderline-hysterical reaction to some minor catalyst that seemed to plague teens of both genders. Hermione, however, was considerably less susceptible to that sort of thing. In fact, it was downright unlikely.

Which left only one culprit within the realm of standard possibility.

As expected, Scott slouched into the kitchen a few moments after Hermione had made her hasty exit. Far less expected was the reddening imprint of a hand across his face. Lila took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. She was going to need patience for whatever came next.

“Congratulations,” he said dully, slumping into a chair opposite from her. “You've been promoted.”

Lila refused to play along. “Thanks, I'm honoured. It's been a long time coming.”

Scott didn't react to her sarcasm. “I'll put in for a duty transfer tonight. It won't be an easy transition, but I know you can handle it. If there's anything you want we don't already have, just let me know, and I'll call in whatever favours I have to. Best I can do on such short notice, but… I'm sorry. I should have had a handle on this.”

Lila nodded slowly. She reached over, picked up the glass of water she had been sipping, and threw it in Scott's face.

He nearly fell over backwards, stumbling off the stool, sputtering and flailing. _“What the fuck—”_

“ _You_ are saying that to _me_?” Lila said incredulously. “You're the one trying to bug out and stick me with YOUR mission, you asshole! What the fuck, indeed!”

Scott's shoulders slumped. “Okay… I might have overreacted, somewhat…”

“Yeah. _Somewhat_.” Lila glared at him, motioning for him to reseat himself. When he did, he looked so pathetic that she could only roll her eyes, her anger softening. She handed him a biscuit. “Here, eat this. I dropped it on the floor earlier.”

Scott stuffed the entire biscuit into his mouth without comment, munching it glumly.

“Now, do you want to tell me why you and Hermione decided to have a dual breakdown?” she asked.

His replied was muffled by food. “Thought it would be fun. Kind of a bonding thing, really, very sisterly. Sometimes my feminine side seems neglected, gotta get the oestrogen raging, have a good cry…”

Lila paused a moment to see if he would continue. “Are you done?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm… I'm done.” He didn't seem entirely sure.

“So?”

He sighed, spraying a good deal of crumbs across Lila's previously sanitary counter top. “We had a fight.”

“About?”

“How I was being a dick. Which I then ended by being an even bigger dick. Kind of a hollow victory.”

“You're really having trouble with this.”

“I know.” Scott dropped his head into his hands. “God, I _know_.”

“You're not even a true teen, get a grip. Surely you didn't act like this the first time around. You've never said anything to that effect,” Lila pointed out, although, when it came to his younger years, Scott had never said much to _any_ effect.

Scott shrugged. “Well, maybe I don't remember.”

“Liar.”

“Well, maybe I want to forget.”

“Much more likely.” Lila probably knew more about Scott's childhood than anyone else, but it still didn't amount to much. She often felt his reticence was unfair considering how much she had told him of her adolescence.

“…I'm just going to stay here awhile,” Scott muttered.

Lila pushed away from the counter. “You're lucky you're in teen form right now, because it means I'm going to be an understanding big sister and cut you yet another break. You will stay here — _and don't even think about touching those biscuits —_ while I go smooth things over with Hermione. You know, like you should have done in the first place.”

“There's a very good reason ARI is not recommended,” Scott said dourly as Lila left the kitchen.

Scott was right about that, anyway. Age Regressed Integration was a solution sometimes worse than the problems it was meant to address. Still, for all his scatterbrained, teen form vitriol, Lila had to privately admit Scott had done well so far. His latest difficulty could be smoothed over with a little effort from a third party, which was why it was often so nice to have a partner for a long-term operation. Even if that partner was his little sister, Lila thought wryly.

As expected, Ginny's door was shut. No doubt that was where Hermione had fled. Lila first went to address the two lazy boys in Ron's room who were dozing in the midday sun.

Lila slapped the door frame with her hand, causing both of them to jump. “Attention all useless boys: there are cookies, or _biscuits,_ as you prefer, downstairs in the kitchen. You may EACH—” she said, raising her voice when Harry and Ron began scrambling to their feet, “—have _three_ cookies. See how many fingers I'm holding up? That's three, in case you've forgotten.”

“Brilliant, thanks, Lila,” Ron enthused as he sped off downstairs, followed closely by Harry.

With them out of the way, Lila was free to approach the girls. Pausing at Ginny's doorway, she listened for a moment but couldn't hear any sobbing within. She'd have been surprised if that were the case. Scott probably hadn't expended too much effort to get Hermione to leave the room, but making her cry would require crossing lines that even Scott's teen form wouldn't allow (Lila hoped).

She knocked twice. The door slid open just far enough for Ginny's angry visage to peek out.

“Oh, it's you,” she said, her expression calming somewhat.”Thought it might be your git of a brother.”

“My git of a brother is downstairs contemplating his shortcomings. Can I come in?” Lila raised a questioning eyebrow.

Ginny opened the door and let Lila through. Inside, Hermione was seated on the edge of the bed. Her face was a bit red, but it didn't seem as if she'd been crying, per Lila's expectations. She was definitely upset, however. Her hands were fisted in the sheets and her expression was drawn.

She glanced up when Lila entered, then cast her gaze back down. “I thought you were Scott, come to apologise. I should have known better.” A tinge of indignation coloured her words.

Lila leaned against the door, arms crossed. “I think you both need to simmer down before any apologising gets done.”

“Scott's the only one who needs to apologise!” Ginny interjected angrily.

Lila threw her a sceptical look. “Do you even know what this is about?”

Ginny leaned back against her dressing table in a huff. “I know enough. I know Scott.”

“I think I have a bit more authority in that area,” Lila said dryly before turning back to Hermione. “So?”

“What do you want me to say? You're evidently aware we had a row,” Hermione said defensively.

“I was more interested in what started it. Actually — no, never mind. I don't care. How are we going to end it?”

“I don't even know _why_ he was so angry!” Hermione burst out, clearly frustrated. “He's just been so distant and hostile, and — and I'd had enough! I still have.”

Lila tilted her head. “And what he said was unforgivable?”

When Hermione hesitated, Ginny jumped in again. “Obviously; that prat, always saying horrible things with no regard for others—”

“Ginny, did Hermione even tell you what he said?”

Ginny's mouth snapped shut but her expression remained defiant. “She doesn't have to. Look at her!”

“I wouldn't care to repeat any of it,” Hermione said weakly.

Lila shrugged. “Yeah, probably not. But I'm assuming that he didn't say anything he wouldn't have said if he wasn't yelling it.”

Hermione blinked. “Well… I suppose that's one way to put it…”

“He likes you,” Lila said simply. “He might hit below the belt, but he won't go for the jugular.”

Hermione sighed in response. “Given time, I might find that comforting.”

Ginny raised her hands in disbelief. “Right as rain, are we? Hermione, you've never just given in to him before, why the bloody hell would you now? Make him apologise!”

“I do deserve an apology, but… So does he.” Hermione's cheeks tinged pink, and she hung her head. “…I slapped him.”

A bright grin immediately lit Ginny's features. “Oh, _Merlin_ , I bet that felt good!”

“No!” Hermione immediately denied. “…Well, perhaps a little — but that doesn't matter! I've perpetuated a dangerous gender stereotype. Violence against women is rightfully deplored, but it shouldn't be any more acceptable for me to strike a friend just because he's male.”

“That's very PC of you, Hermione, and could no doubt spark a fascinating debate on gender,” Lila said in a bland tone that belied her spoken interest, “but the fact of the matter is that if you hit Scott, it's because he let you. You know what he is. He could have broken your wrist without a whole lot of effort. It probably took more effort just to sit there and let it happen, actually. I almost admire his self-control, right then. Which is odd, coming right out of a spectacular _failure_ of self-control. Isn't that odd? I find that odd.”

“I know he let me! That hardly makes up for it.”

“Then you can both say you're sorry. After you eat some of the biscuits I baked, assuming there's any left after the ravenous horde of boys descended.”

Ginny's attention was captured by that statement. “You baked biscuits? Why didn't you say anything earlier, they're probably gone now!”

“Don't worry. I left some out, but I hid the rest. Still, that's no guarantee. Scott will find them, somehow.” Lila's eyes narrowed. “He always finds food I hide. He's like a goddamn truffle pig.”

Ginny didn't seem interested in what a goddamn truffle pig was or why Scott was similar to one. “If Ron gets into them, there'll be nothing but crumbs!”

“Then I guess you'd better hurry,” Lila told her. When Ginny made a hasty departure, Lila looked over at Hermione and rolled her eyes. “These kids, huh? Too bad you're one of them so you can't roll your eyes, too.”

“You don't see _me_ sprinting off, do you?” Hermione protested.

“No, and therefore the cookies will be gone. You've sacrificed everything in your pursuit of dignity.”

“Biscuits are hardly everything,” Hermione opined.

“That's not a good attitude to take when all the cookies are currently being eaten.” Lila pushed off the wall and gestured to Hermione. “Come on, I'll make sure you get some alone time with Scott when you're ready. Just try not to drag things out, Molly won't be running errands forever.”

By Lila's estimation, they were already cutting things close as it was. Molly was an efficient shopper and would no doubt return before too long. Before that happened, it was imperative that everything was calmed and that everyone had at least the appearance of getting things done. Lila liked weddings, but she'd never been involved in the preparations for one before. It was severely dampening her anticipation.

She walked into the kitchen just in time to see Hermione snag one of the few remaining biscuits (whilst Ginny flirted with Harry, and ate his share in the process). Scott remained exactly where Lila had left him, chewing on a cookie without any apparent enjoyment.

Lila approached Hermione and briefly leaned down to her ear. “Now would be the time,” she said quietly. Straightening up, she addressed the others in a louder tone. “Anyone who gets crumbs on my clean floor will be cleaning them up with their tongue — and then cleaning _that_ up with a rag. And, Ron, for fuck's sake, chew with your mouth closed! That's right, I said 'fuck', don't give me that look. You're making me mad.”

Offered the proper distraction, Hermione and Scott slipped out to the sitting room. With any luck, they'd patch things up before the rift grew any wider.

Between the wedding and the war, further distractions were not needed.

***---~**~---*** 

Scott was hiding.

Not from Hermione, surprisingly. He wouldn't have minded seeing her. The two of them had arrived at an uneasy truce, and Scott would have liked the chance to settle things on a more permanent basis. Instead, he was lounging on the roof of The Burrow, safely out of sight and hopefully out of mind, as well.

With the arrival of so many Weasleys (Arthur had been at work far less often, Fred and George had returned to help with preparations, Charlie was present for the same reason and Bill was around to be the star of the upcoming show), it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid attracting notice. Scott's false history had been established enough for most purposes, but Bill's presence during the attack on Hogwarts was problematic. He'd seen too much and knew too little. That was a dangerous combination, and it was only his near-total preoccupation with his forthcoming nuptials — and Lila's stone-faced refusal to discuss the matter — which kept him at bay.

And that wasn't even taking into account Fleur's family. Scott nervously opened one eye and glanced around, closing it again once he was sure no one was looking for him. Fleur's younger sister (what the hell was her name?) had developed an unhealthy obsession with Scott, providing attention he didn't want or need. Her puppyish crush was, as far as Scott could tell, not hampered by the fact that Scott could deflect her juvenile Veela aura. His immunity seemed to only provide her with more determination.

Scott found the part-Veela sisters interesting solely for what they were involuntarily doing to the shape. Tall blondes were not his style, even if the little one had been old enough to qualify. Women like that only reminded him of his sister.

In regards to Lila, she had been a godsend. He had never been more grateful for her presence on the mission than he had been in the last few days, watching as she used her deep integration at The Burrow to the fullest effect, issuing orders and butting heads with the Weasley boys as if she'd lived there her entire life. Fred and George had been resentful at first, but quickly learned it would make their lives easier not to cross Lila (no doubt Mrs Weasley's support of Lila had helped their conclusion along). Scott had learned the same lesson long before — he just generally chose to ignore it.

His lips twitched in a small smile. It had probably escaped the attention of most, but Scott had been watching from the outskirts of the semi-organised free-for-all that constituted the final days of wedding preparation, and Charlie was clearly smitten with Lila. He did his best to hide it, but Ron appeared to come by his lack of subtlety honestly. Scott didn't know whether Lila would discourage Charlie's interest or not. He hoped she wouldn't burn any bridges, since that kind of infatuation could be useful. It provided a hold over a person that might be exploited at some point, should a situation require it.

“Scott?”

Scott sat up, broken from his thoughts by Lila calling his name. It sounded as if she were in the garden just below his feet.

“Scott, I know you're up there. Gabrielle isn't with me, numb nuts. Get down here.”

 _That_ was the kid's name. Scott knew it started with a G. “Yeah, hold on. I'm working on my tan.”

“Prematurely age on your own time. There's stuff that needs doing.”

“Oh, God. More? Surely Mrs Weasley is out of decorations. There isn't that much storage in the world.”

“We're done with the decorations. For now. I'm going to pop out to the shop with Molly, and I need you to keep an eye on things,” Lila explained.

Scott scooted down the shingles until his legs were dangling off the roof. He leaned forward and looked at Lila mischievously. “'Pop out to the shop'?” he quoted. “You're blending in so well, I'm proud of you, really.”

“Get. Down. Here. Pronto.”

“You're very impatient for a single mother.”

“Now!”

Scott sighed and pushed himself off the roof, landing gracefully in the grass. “All right, but that creepy little blonde chick better stay away from me. She's not even a Prime, I don't have to put up with her.”

Lila crossed her arms, unyielding. “But you will. Oh, but keep Ginny away from her. Gabrielle has been making eyes at Harry since you did your disappearing act, and it's creating some friction. Better she moons over you than the guy in a fragile relationship with a very touchy girlfriend.”

As much as Scott hated to admit it, she was right. The integrationist in him was already examining the situation dispassionately, working the angles, calculating how best to keep Gabrielle's interest on him and divert her from Harry. “Okay, I'll do something about it.”

Lila smiled at him. “There we go. I knew there was still a professional in that teen form somewhere.”

“When I grow up, I want to be big and strong like you!” Scott said, affecting a high-pitched street urchin accent.

Gratifyingly, Lila laughed. “Then eat your vegetables, do your homework, and keep that creepy little blonde chick away from Harry.”

Scott eyed her knowingly. “And should I also keep that creepy big redheaded dude away from you?”

Lila ran a hand through her hair, preening. “Oh, I don't know about that. It's so nice to have a gentleman caller.”

“That sounds so dignified… And sexless. I'm pretty sure he wants to bone you on any available flat surface.”

“Please stop projecting your lust for Sophie on all other relationships. It's very unbecoming.” Lila raised a finger. “Also, don't say anything like that to him. _I_ will handle this, not you.”

“As your older brother—”

“You'll stay out of it. I happen to like it when someone notices I'm a woman.”

“Who couldn't? You have two huge reminders—”

“Just go!” Lila cut him off for a second time before he could really get started. “I'm supposed to have left like five minutes ago, get out of here!”

“There must be something innate in my teen form that accepts older authority, because why else would I be _listening_ to you?” Scott complained as he headed for the back door.

“You're showing signs of self-preservation — I'm as surprised as you are!” Lila called back, and then Scott was inside and had many other things to focus on.

He hugged the outer walls of the room as he moved towards the kitchen, avoiding both eye contact and the appearance of being unoccupied. That was a dangerous state to be in with the wedding so close; idle hands were immediately tasked. So he walked with purpose, even though he didn't have much of one. All he had to work with was the vague notion that he needed to watch his Primes and make sure of… what? Nobody was in danger inside The Burrow. Not physically, anyway. There were other pitfalls.

One of those obstacles came bounding towards him with a swish of platinum blonde hair.  “ _Bonjour, Monsieur Kharan!_ ” Gabrielle said brightly.

Scott carefully hid a flinch. “Gabby, hi! Lila told me you were talking to Harry, do you know where he is?”

She nodded. _“Oui, il est là-haut.”_

Scott was fortunate that he spoke French, as Gabrielle's skills in English were not at the same level as her sister's. He considered that his fluency might be working against him: Gabrielle probably appreciated his ability to converse in her native tongue.

Well, it was too late to pretend otherwise. “ _Merci_. I'm going to go see what he's up to.”

Gabrielle followed him without invitation, chattering away in French whilst occasionally pausing to look up at him through her eyelashes coquettishly. Scott largely ignored her, though with Lila's admonishment in mind he did throw out a comment now and then. Mostly 'yeah' and 'uh-huh', but it was enough. At least Gabrielle was too young to expect anything else. Her girlish attraction was simple and untainted by the emotions and hormones that could have made things much more complicated for Scott. He'd give her a modicum of attention, dance with her at the wedding, and then she'd be shipping off back to France.

 _“Avez-vous été amis avec Monsieur Potter pendant une longue période?”_ Gabrielle asked, breaking Scott away from his thoughts.

“Uh, about a year or so. _Près d'un an._ I moved here from the United States with my sister, could you tell from my accent? _Que je suis un Américain?”_

She looked up at him curiously. _“Votre accent est différent… Mais je ne connais pas les Américains.”_

“Well, I guess you do now.”

She smiled. “Yes, I know you!”

The upper portions of The Burrow were largely empty due to the activity below. Scott made his way up to Ginny's room, leaning around the door frame and peering inside. Harry, Ginny and Hermione were in deep discussion over a book. Dumbledore's gifts were spread around on the bed: Harry's Snitch, Hermione's children’s book and Ginny's wooden box. Scott was pleased to see there was research in progress. They'd had little time for it beforehand, and a stolen moment could be valuable.

He stepped inside, making sure to knock his shoe against the wall to alert them that he was present, and not alone. Hermione snapped the book shut, the Snitch disappeared into Harry's pocket and Ginny knocked the wooden box behind the bed.

“Scott, hey,” Harry said, standing up. “Where'd you run off to earlier?”

“Rooftop. I was hiding from Lila,” Scott told him, but he jerked his head in the direction of Gabrielle, who had stepped into the room behind him.

Harry winced slightly. “Oh, hello, Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle smiled and nodded in Harry's direction, but her gaze remained fixated on Scott. Apparently, his presence was enough to dampen her interest in The Boy Who Lived.  From an integration standpoint it was useful, but unexpected. As far as most people knew, Scott was just some random Muggleborn from across the pond who had befriended Harry. Harry, meanwhile, had not only interacted with Gabrielle before, he was famous as hell _and_ had saved her life (or had at least provided the appearance of doing so, as Scott understood the story).

Scott didn't know if it was his unusual accent, his looks, or the simple fact that he spoke French _—_ though it was likely none of the above. He suspected that Gabrielle's fixation had gone to him by default: he was the youngest unattached male in the household.

Ginny had already shifted a bit closer to Harry and was glaring at Gabrielle, so Scott knew it was time for a distraction. “Yeah, so, I don't think anybody knows we're up here right now and Lila just left with Molly. That probably gives us about forty-five minutes to an hour to do whatever we want as long as we stay out of sight. Also, where the hell is Ron?”

“With Charlie, last I saw him,” Harry said.

“He doesn't get to see Charlie much, so he's making the most of it, whilst he can…” Hermione added, and as she trailed off it went unsaid, but understood, that the end of the wedding was not what she referred to.

“Hmm.” Scott wanted to say more, but Gabrielle's presence was severely hampering things. About all he could do was leave, letting his Primes work out what they could before they were inevitably interrupted. “Okay, just checking in. Me and Gabby are going to go see if there's anything worth stealing in the kitchen. As you were.”

He turned and left, glad that Gabrielle would follow him without prompting. Downstairs, things were just as chaotic as before. Scott dodged Bill and Gabrielle's father, who were moving a table, and slipped past Fleur and her mother in the midst of a high-pitched argument in rapid French. Something about flower arrangements.

With Lila and Molly gone, the kitchen was blessedly deserted. Scott poked around in a cabinet that seemed like a spot Lila might conceal something in; he was rewarded with a small wrapped package of leftover biscuits. He turned to Gabrielle with a smug grin and hoisted his ill-gotten gains. She beamed back at him in response.

They slipped out the front door. Scott decided to avoid the usual spots on the off chance someone came looking for them. Lila's car was still parked near the garage, so Scott made his way over to it and sat down with his back against one of the tyres. Anyone at the house would have to circle around to see him.

Gabrielle sat in the grass next to him and held out an expectant hand. Scott dropped one of the cookies into it and together they ate in silence, savouring the stolen treats.

It was such moments which reminded Scott what a mistake it was to assume integration was all about fighting. His job sometimes required killing, but it also required him to sit out in the sunshine and eat biscuits with a French girl for companionship. True integration was about becoming a part of someone's life and accepting everything that came with it. And life was mostly mundane.

 _“Ceux-ci sont très bons,”_ Gabrielle commented. _“Votre sœur en faire?”_

 _“Oui._ She can be handy in a kitchen — _elle est bonne dans une cuisine._ I'm not half bad myself, depending. When you travel a lot it's a nice skill to develop.”

Gabrielle frowned. “Half bad? _Partiellement mauvais?”_

“Uh, _non_. I mean that I'm pretty good at it. _Plutôt bien._ ”

 _“Très bon!_ Yours are like hers?”

Scott shrugged. “I'm not much for biscuits, that's kind of her thing. I make some kick a… some kickin' chimichangas, though.”

“What is 'chimichanga'?”

“A fried burrito. It's Mexican food. _Mexicain._ ” He grimaced in pity. These poor savages had never had a chimichanga.

That answer seemed to satisfy Gabrielle for the moment. Scott knew he probably wasn't doing her English skills any favours by constantly explaining in French, but it was all he had the patience for.

Patience. He should have had limitless patience after all that had happened. There he was, treading water again. Playing escort for a blonde tween who was barely even peripherally related to the events at hand. At least at Hogwarts he'd been networking.

At least Kylie hadn't talked much.

“My sister looks like your sister, you think?” Gabrielle wondered.

Scott didn't know about that. They were both blonde, true. Going any further, Scott knew he was probably biased. That said, Lila was taller, tougher, smarter and (in Scott's sibling-solidarity rooted opinion which he would NEVER, EVER confess) substantially more attractive.

He kept all of that to himself. “A little bit, yeah.”

Gabrielle looked up at him with a hint of apprehension. _“Je pense que Fleur ne l'aime pas beaucoup…”_ Then, perhaps realising that the possible tension between Lila and Fleur might be carrying over to Scott and herself, she hastened to add, “I do like you!”

Scott had already arrived at that conclusion. As for Fleur not liking Lila, he didn't know much about that. Either Fleur was just naturally catty, or they had clashed over some wedding details (possibly both). The fact of the matter was, he didn't know a whole lot about Gabrielle's family in general. Under different circumstances he might have used the time before the wedding to rectify that, but there were far more pressing concerns.

He spotted two of those concerns slipping through the trees at the edge of the property. From the way Fred and George were attempting to be inconspicuous, Scott figured they were probably looping their way around to the stump he had found full of whiskey bottles. It would be a good opportunity to take their measure; Scott didn't know exactly what was coming, but he did know they would be a part of it. It might be helpful to come to an understanding.

Besides, the secrecy was already wearing thin. The battle at Hogwarts had punched all kind of holes in Scott's carefully constructed false existence. A few more wouldn't hurt.

He turned and pressed the few remaining biscuits into Gabrielle's hand. “Here, Gabby, do me a favour — take these back to the house with you. _Partagez-les avec votre sœur, si vous voulez, mais assurez-vous que vos parents ne les vois pas._ ”

She took them eagerly. “Thank you! _Je vais les cacher quand je rentre à l'intérieur…_ ” She stood to leave, then paused. “ _Mais…_ you are not coming?”

“I'll be there in a few, _dans une minute,_ I need to go talk to the twins, okay?”

 _“Bien._ See you soon, Scott!” Gabrielle waved at him in a manner that was probably intended to be flirtatious.

Scott headed for the woods as soon as she was gone. He hoped she wouldn't head straight for Harry once she was back in The Burrow. Scott had never actually been grateful that he and Lila hadn't met until they were both adults (the loss of a common childhood seemed a high price), but he was starting to consider it. Kid sisters seemed like a lot of trouble.

Several minutes of walking put him out into the woods, the sounds of nature deadened by the thick summer canopy. Fred and George were conversing up ahead, standing around the decaying tree base and passing a bottle of something or the other back and forth.

“Is this a private party?” Scott asked as he meandered up, startling the both of them.

They recovered quickly. “Scott Kharan, old bean!” Fred said grandly. “By all means, join us! Pull up a stump!”

“If you can find another. This one's full of rubbish,” George added, gesturing around.

“It's not the only one,” Fred said.

“Who, me?” George pointed to himself incredulously.

“If the shoe fits!”

“Our feet are the same size, brother mine. In fact, I think these are actually _your_ shoes.”

“I thought I felt a bit lopsided today.”

Scott shrugged. “Well, you may be full of rubbish, but at least you aren't drunk.” He peered at the bottle George was holding. “Oh. Never mind.”

Fred grinned. “This might be enough to knock _you_ on your arse. We're sober as judges.”

Scott shrugged. “Just let me know when your liver is about to explode, so I can clear the blast radius. And speak of blast radii…”

“You had our undivided attention the moment you said 'blast',” George told him.

Scott leaned back against a nearby tree and let his expression become serious. The twins took note, glancing at each other. “I wanted to talk about your shop.”

Fred smirked. “You might want to be more specific, mate, there's a lot going on behind those doors…”

“I hope so. In layman's terms, fellas — what do you have that will take the legs off a theoretical Death Eater?”

The twins dropped all pretence of humour. “So it's happening, then,” George said quietly. “You lot are leaving to…”

Scott was not surprised that the two of them had pieced together that much. “Yes. And soon, we're only here for the wedding. You know what's coming.”

“Everybody knows what's coming,” Fred said. “Everybody who isn't a bloody idiot.”

“We're ready… Or, mostly. We still have all the defensive products we've been selling, and we can disappear if we have to. As for anything else…” George trailed off, scratching at his head. “We've had a few ideas. But we weren't sure…”

“There was a market? Or that they were a step you wanted to take?” Scott asked.

“The second one. There's always a market for weapons,” Fred said cynically (and correctly).

Scott leaned forward with interest. “What kind of weapons?”

George held up a hand. “Before we go any further with this, we need to know who you are. Who you _really_ are. You and your sister aren't exactly your average American tourists, yeah?”

Scott sighed. “You don't need to know that any more than I really need to know about your weapon designs. Me and Lil have been tasked with helping Harry. In the larger scheme of things, that translates into helping pretty much everyone close to him.”

“Remus said you were with some American version of the Order. Or, at least, that Dumbledore trusted you.” Fred seemed uncertain of that information.

“And if that's not the truth, it's close enough to work if you choose to believe it,” Scott said. “Bottom line: make all the bombs you can and get ready to vanish. The time may come for some collaborative efforts.”

“You'll notice he didn't answer the question,” George said to his brother.

“No, I didn't. Can you live with that?”

“Harry trusts you. That earns you a bit from us, as well,” George said. “Just don't stretch it too far.”

“What kind of collaboration were you talking about?” Fred asked, returning to Scott's previous comment.

“Some properly targeted deconstruction can go a long way,” Scott hinted.

“We aren't terrorists, mate,” George stated.

Scott rolled his eyes. “A terrorist is just a revolutionary without a game plan. Our hate has _focus_. And our goals are achievable. We aren't trying to kill an _idea_ here, guys, we just need to kill one person in particular.”

“Ah, I hate to burst your bubble, but we run a _joke_ shop, if you'll recall. Light-hearted, class clowns? Dropped out to pursue a rollicking life manufacturing fart pranks?” Fred said acerbically. “Somehow the 'assassin' part of that was something we missed out on.”

“Unless you think you can force-feed You-Know-Who an Acid Pop; we might have a few on back order,” George noted.

Scott recognised their defensive reaction in derailing a serious conversation with sarcasm; he did it all the time. It didn't matter, though, because he'd said what needed to be said. “Hey, do what you want. I'm just giving you the heads up, chuckles, don't shoot the messenger. I'll be getting shot at soon enough as it is.”

“God, you're morose when you're sober,” George sighed, lifting the whiskey bottle to his lips.

“You're very judgemental for a drunk,” Scott told him. He turned to leave, but stopped when Fred caught him by the shoulder.

“Be careful. All of you. And make sure you _do_ stay in touch, however you can manage it. We're not saying _no_ , absolutely, but let's see how things turn out, right?” Fred was stoic, but couldn't quite hide the worry in his eyes.

“I meant it about having a way out,” Scott said. “The Order is going to be a big fat target for every Death Eater looking to make his bones. They'll kill you if they can and scatter you even if they can't.”

“Don't worry about us. We can handle ourselves. Just watch out for Ron, will you?”

Scott nodded. “I will.”

“Good. Oh, and if you tell him I said that, I'll fill all your trousers with itching powder.”

“Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose if you tell me what it's going to be?”

“Not if I'm lying,” Fred said, grinning wickedly.

Scott's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Good point. Just keep in mind that any pranking retribution will be visited upon your balls.”

Fred was outraged. “Damn it, you can't just go right for the bollocks!”

“Disproportionate, is what that is. There's an order to these things,” George said authoritatively.

“Just stopping this before it starts, _stultorum._ That was Latin, by the way. _Latina, lingua._ Wouldn't want you of lesser intellect to feel left out,” Scott said condescendingly.

“Expect the worst, my friend,” Fred said ominously.

George perked up in interest. “Can you teach me to swear in Latin? 'You cuntus maximus', all that lark?”

Scott spread his hands. “Just say that — who's gonna know?”

“ _I'd_ know,” George grumbled. “If you're going to swear, do it properly.”

“That's a sentiment I can get behind — but we'll have to save that activity for a rainy day, because I need to get back to the house. I can give you the Latin motto for your shop, though,” Scott said over his shoulder as he walked away. _“Caveat emptor!”_  

***---~**~---***

“Machiavellian.”

“What?”

“That's the word I was looking for. Machiavellian.”

“I didn't know you were looking for a word,” Harry said shortly. He wasn't automatically opposed to Scott's conversation, but, seeing as how he was sitting at the table waiting for his birthday cake to be brought out, it wasn't the ideal time to discuss 'Machiavellian'.

“Machiavelli said it was better to be feared than loved,” Scott mused. “But he also warned against being hated… That's the balance, between hate and fear. Riddle doesn't walk it well. He’s not subtle.”

Hermione leaned in to assist. “Scott, is this really the time?”

Ron was also talking. “It is chocolate, right? I'm not speaking to you if you asked for anything else.”

Somewhere behind Harry, Neville and Luna were engaged in a conversation of their own. “I just wish you could have stayed a bit longer,” Neville was saying.

“We'll be at Hogwarts soon, Neville,” Luna replied. “Would you like to hold hands?”

Hagrid was also present, making the room seem crowded all by himself. He was talking to Remus and Charlie in a voice that would have been considered shouting coming from anyone else. Tonks was deep in discussion with Ginny; about what, Harry didn't know, but Tonks was frequently changing her hair colour.

Between them and the other weddings guests moving in and out of the room, it was all a little overwhelming.

Harry would have preferred a quieter gathering. A little cake, a few presents, and maybe a special present from Ginny later on… That would be ideal. Alone time had been a precious commodity during the wedding preparations; with the event itself now imminent, it had all but vanished.

Harry shifted in his seat and tried not to look put out. It was all for him, after all, even if he hadn't asked for it. There was no need to be ungrateful.

Besides, all the presents he'd received thus far had been splendid. Before Mr and Mrs Weasley had given him one, he hadn't known it was customary to give a wizard a watch when they came of age (after all the years spent divorced from his Muggle upbringing, he still had a great deal to learn). Ron's present had been a book with the rather unwieldy title _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_. Harry hadn't shown it to anyone else, yet. He was certain Scott would have something to say about it, probably at length.

Scott had yet to deliver any presents of his own, which might have meant he simply hadn't bothered to procure one. Harry didn't think so, though. Scott wouldn't ignore an occasion that was so significant to Harry, even if it was only to further his integration. No, he most likely had a present that couldn't be safely given with their current audience. It could very well be dangerous, a thought that left Harry excited and apprehensive all at once.

Ginny also hadn't given any presents so far. Harry had a good feeling about that. All the best gifts from Ginny couldn't be wrapped.

Well… They couldn't be _un_ wrapped in public.

“Cake Time!” Lila sang out, carrying the delicious dessert on a tray, candles lit.

Harry was immediately besieged by well wishes and hugs. After Mrs Weasley squeezed him tightly, Lila stepped in. She didn't give Harry quite as enthusiastic a hug as the other woman, but when she moved back she placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Molly wanted something more extravagant, but I was told you didn't.”

Harry smiled up at her appreciatively, nodding his thanks. If she'd been given the chance, Mrs Weasley would have run herself even more ragged than she already was putting together additional decorations for Harry. He didn't need that kind of effort. Just having any sort of party at all was enough, and, after his childhood at the Dursleys’, still something of an oddity.

Scott had risen from his seat and was fidgeting near the cake. “Harry, for the love of GOD, dude, hurry up and cut this thing or I am about to commit a major infraction of birthday protocol—”

“Oh, no, you aren't!” Lila said, brandishing a knife in his direction. “Harry gets the first piece and _you_ will wait your turn.”

“It's fine, everyone can help themselves,” Harry tried to say, but Lila placed an enormous slice on a plate in front of him and then fixed him with an expectant stare. Harry dutifully ate his first bite. “It's really good, thank you, Lila.”

“No big deal, just an old recipe I dug out,” she said airily, but she seemed pleased by the compliment.

“I will now demonstrate my impression of Ron,” Scott was saying. He had his plate tipped upward, apparently to shovel his entire slice into his mouth.

“That's not an impression, that's just you,” Ron scoffed. “I could eat _two_ slices at once.”

“Uh, that sounds like a challenge, freckles.”

“It sounds like both of you are going to get smacked,” Lila said threateningly.

Harry wouldn't have minded seeing Ron versus Scott in an eating contest, but he didn't voice that.

“Happy Birthday, Harry,” Neville said, coming up on Harry's left. “I know I already said it with everyone else, but…”

Harry grinned up at him. “Thanks, Nev! I'm glad you could make it.”

“Me too! I've just wanted to get out of the house, since…” Neville trailed off and glanced in Luna's direction.

Harry knew that Luna had stayed with Neville for some time over the summer, and not much else. Obviously there was more to the story. “Er, Nev… Are you and Luna…?”

Neville turned bright red, but kept his chin up. “Y-Yes. We're seeing each other now.”

Harry felt a twinge of sympathy when he heard how defensively Neville said it, as if he were expecting immediate derision. The worst part was, he probably would receive it back at Hogwarts. Luna was pretty, intelligent, and one of the bravest people Harry had ever known, but many (including her own house) never saw past the cork necklace and radish earrings.

Well, Harry thought firmly, neither she nor Neville were going to get that kind of scorn from him. “That's brilliant, Nev. Really, I mean it. She's a great girl.”

Neville was still red with embarrassment, but he smiled hesitantly. “She really is… I wish I'd seen it sooner.”

“I know what you mean,” Harry said, looking over at Ginny.

Neville went to rejoin Luna, and Scott immediately appeared in the vacated space. He grinned widely at Harry, teeth blackened by copious amounts of chocolate. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Harry's expression turned dubious. “Now you're taking all the credit for them, too?”

“I can never take _all_ the credit,” Scott said with blatantly false modesty. “An object must exist before it can be moved, these things are no different. We don't create reality; we shape it, we _shift_ it.”

“Which is Machiavellian?”

“No! Wait — yes, sort of. But no, that was a different train of thought. Thanks for reminding me, though.”

Harry glanced around, but no one was paying attention to them. “So what would have happened, then? If you hadn't done anything, I mean. If you just left everyone alone.”

Scott eyed him. “You sound faintly bitter.”

“You were a complete twat on loads of occasions just to get me with Ginny.”

“It worked, didn't it?”

Harry glared at him. “And with Neville and Luna, all you did was send a bloody letter…”

Scott held his hands up in a placating manner. “Okay, I see what you're saying, but it's not a fair comparison. I started giving you a hard time only _after_ I tried a bunch of other stuff.”

Harry didn't want to have that argument in the middle of his birthday party. “Sod it, just answer the question.”

“I don't know. You and Ginny, Ron and Hermione — these are relationships built on requirements. They provide strength. They are, if not absolutely necessary, then highly useful. They give you something you need.”

“But how is Neville different with Luna?” Harry asked, feeling a bit angered at the implication that they weren't important to the shape (and therefore, to Scott).

“They aren't. Not functionally. Love is a binding agent: you take two disparate people, and that connection allows them to compensate for the weaknesses of the other. They become complementary. Love can also destroy, of course, but hopefully this whole war thing will be over before that happens. If it does,” Scott amended upon seeing Harry's alarmed look. “So, the principle is the same. But because Neville and Luna aren't as… _central_ , to this escapade, the shape wasn't so urgent on the matter. There were multiple strands available, I just… I just encouraged one of them.”

There were lines to be read between that statement and Harry didn't like the implication. “You mean you picked the outcome that was most convenient for you.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

Harry stared at his cake for a moment, trying to decide if he was outraged, resigned, or if it was really any of his business in the first place.

“They're happy together, Harry,” Scott defended himself. “Could you see them with anyone else? Maybe they would have had a connection anyway, and maybe it wouldn't have lasted, but why go through that kind of trauma and then wait to find someone else when they can have a lasting relationship _now?”_

“What if they would have been happier with those other people?” Harry countered.

“What if they wouldn't? Let's not pretend we can compare what they have now with some distant, unknown outcome.”

Harry considered that. “So you don't know much about the alternatives?”

“Nope.”

“…Well, whatever. I just hope you know what you're doing.”

“Hey — it's me!” Scott said, grabbing his empty plate and going to help himself to more cake.

Harry had about three seconds to contemplate how unhelpful that was before he had company again. This time it was Ron who sat at Harry's side. “Happy birthday, mate. You look at that book, yet?”

“No, not yet. I'm waiting until Scott isn't around,” Harry said.

“Why? Think he'll get smart about it?”

“We are talking about Scott…”

Ron snorted. “He should keep his fat mouth shut. Most action he's seen is flirting with Hufflepuffs, and the easy ones, at that.” He nodded his head in the direction of Lila, who was picking up empty plates. “Hey, have you seen Charlie with Lila?”

“Charlie?” Harry located Ron's older brother sitting near the window. Sure enough, he was watching Lila. “Huh. Can't say I have…”

“He's completely barmy about her, full stop,” Ron said, sniggering. “Embarrassing, really.”

“Yeah, you have no idea what that's like,” Harry said dryly.

Ron's ears turned red. “Shut it. That was different.”

Harry considered the situation and couldn't think of any positive outcomes. He wasn't even sure if Lila qualified as human. “Maybe you should say something to him…”

Ron shook his head sorrowfully. “Charlie, Charlie… Daft bugger pokes at dragons for a living, 'course he picks the most violent girl we know. I wonder if he _needs_ to feel like he might lose a limb, no matter what he's doing…”

Harry had been thinking more about the emotional fallout, but he couldn't say that Ron didn't have a point. “Er, true. Maybe one of us should talk to Lila about it…?” He reconsidered whether he really wanted to do that. “Let's make _Scott_ talk to her.”

“You do what you want, mate, I'm not going to be anywhere near when that goes pear shaped,” Ron said wisely.

The party began to slow to its inevitable end once everyone was full of cake and satisfied. The guests began to drift off, several of them having to leave (though any goodbyes were tempered by the knowledge they'd be right back for the wedding). In deference to his birthday, Harry found himself exempt from any jobs around the house. That was how, as evening began to set, he found himself upstairs, alone with his friends, for the first time in weeks.

Hermione took charge. “All right, let's go about this in an organised manner,” she said in her best authoritarian voice.

Scott, predictably, sabotaged her moment. _“_ _Jawohl_ _,_ _mein Führerin_ _!”_

She paused just long enough to roll her eyes at him, then turned to Dumbledore's gifts, which she had arranged on Ron's dressing table. “I've read through the book… And though I enjoyed it, I can't see any other reason it was left to me. That said, I'm sure we can all agree that there _was_ a specific reason we were given these things; therefore, I just haven't discovered it yet.”

“You'll suss it out,” Ron said with total confidence.

Hermione blushed a bit. “Um, thank you, Ron. Moving on…” She picked up the Deluminator. “As for your gift, I can think of all sorts of ways this could be useful. Stealth, primarily, but I was wondering if it works on anything that _produces_ light, even as a by-product.”

That caught Scott's attention. “Power sources? Bioluminescence?”

“Perhaps. We'll have to test it, at some point.” She set it down and lifted Harry's Snitch. “Harry, I've given it a bit of thought, and, if I remember right, you know how you caught this particular Snitch…”

“Yeah. The bloody thing about choked me,” Harry recalled. “Give it here, I'll lick it or something.”

Ginny, who was on the bed with Harry, leaning against his chest, grimaced and shifted against him slightly. “Ugh. You don't know where that's been!”

Harry grinned down at her. “Want to give me a kiss afterwards?”

She turned her head, pressing a hand against his mouth playfully. “No! You'll just have to kiss me somewhere else…”

Ron was staring at them in horror, so Hermione prudently moved things along. “Harry?”

“Right.” Harry pressed the Snitch to his lips. He held it there for a moment, but nothing happened. He lowered it.

Hermione looked puzzled. “I thought that would accomplish something…”

Ginny took the Snitch from Harry. “Look, there's writing here now! 'I open at the close'… What?”

“'I open at the close',” Harry repeated, reading it for himself.

Hermione sighed. “More riddles. I suppose it couldn't be too easy.” She gestured at Ron and Scott. “Any ideas from either of you?”

Ron shrugged. “No, that sounds pretty much like nonsense.”

Scott's face was creased in thought. “Get back to me. We're missing something.”

“All right, well, I suppose we won't solve everything in one night.” Hermione took the Snitch back and traded it for the small wooden box that had been bequeathed to Ginny. “Has anyone had any thoughts on Ginny's box?”

Scott startled everyone with a sudden snort of laughter. “Maybe a few, though I can guarantee that Harry has had _many_ thoughts concerning Ginny's box.”

Hermione may not have been familiar with whatever slang Scott found so amusing, but she knew a rude joke when she heard one — especially from Scott. “This! This wooden box she got from Dumbledore, not whatever horrible thing _you're_ thinking of!”

“What does it say on it, again?” Harry interrupted. He wanted to head off any potential clashes between Scott and Hermione before they grew loud enough for someone to investigate.

“'Something that was supposed to happen',” Hermione said.

Ron rolled his eyes. “We don't understand any of this shite; there we go, that's what was supposed to happen. Dumbledore always liked a good laugh.”

“No, I know this one. I've heard that before…” Scott muttered.

“Where?” Ginny said.

Scott sighed and leaned back against the headboard, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Okay. 'Something that was supposed to happen'. Involving Harry and Ginny, probably. Something Dumbledore said to me… Wait… No, _I_ said that!”

Hermione's face lit up in excitement. “You said it?”

“Yeah! Yeah, it was up in his office. We were talking about stuff, then there was an interruption from the shape, he asked me what was wrong… I said something happened, he was worried, so I said it was okay, that it was 'something that was _supposed_ to happen'!” He opened his eyes. “That's it! God, that was driving me crazy. It's kind of scary to think that he was banking on me remembering that.”

“Out with it, already!” Ginny said impatiently. “What's the secret?”

Scott looked at her shrewdly. “Nothing that hasn't already happened in this house with the box present. So, let's try something a little more tactile. Harry, Ginny — put your hands on the box.”

Ginny placed her hand on the wooden surface and Harry followed suit, placing his hand over hers.

“That's very touching, Harry, but let's not take any chances — put your hand on the _box_ ,” Scott ordered.

Harry grimaced to cover his embarrassment, and moved his hand.

“Okay. Now, kiss each other.”

Ron started. “Wait just a bloody minute—”

“Shut up, firecrotch, this is for a good cause,” Scott told him.

Hermione nodded. “I think I see what he's getting at. Go ahead, you two.”

Harry looked down at Ginny and raised a nervous eyebrow. “Er, not especially used to an audience…”

Ginny shook her head fondly. “Harry, stop being a prat and just kiss me.”

So he did.

He withdrew in alarm as he heard the box click and felt it jump beneath his hand. “Whoa!”

“It's opened!” Ginny said excitedly. She popped open the lid and reached inside.

“Be careful!” Hermione cautioned. “We don't know what… Oh!”

Hermione's exclamation was in response to Ginny withdrawing a strange object from the box. It was shaped like a vial, wrapped with gold filigree in curious shapes that were hard to trace with the eye, beguiling and strange. The bottom had four silver legs so it could be stood up, and the top of it seemed to be sealed with lead.

The liquid inside the glass was dark red and burned with a strong, unearthly light.

Ron peered at it in fascination. “What… the bloody hell… is _that?”_

“It appears to be a test tube full of blood,” Scott said matter-of-factly.

Hermione shook her head. “It's much more than that. If I'm not mistaken, that's a phylactery!”

Ginny's eyes widened. “Aren't those illegal?”

“Some kinds are, yes. But I don't think the Headmaster would have had any of those.”

Ginny reached back into the box and withdrew a slip of paper. “There's another note…”

Harry read it over her shoulder. _“'Ms Weasley — A token to assist you in your admirable dedication. Take comfort in the light: so long as it shines, so does he'.”_

“Oh…” Hermione had a hand pressed to her chest, her eyes bright. “That's so _romantic!”_

Ginny blinked. “Um, why?”

“That's Harry's blood inside the vial. It's tied to him, and as long as it's glowing, Harry is… still with us,” Hermione explained. “It should also grow brighter or weaker depending on how far away he is.”

Harry wasn't sure he liked the idea of having that much of his blood sitting around outside of his veins. “That's… sort of disturbing.”

“I think it's dead useful,” Ginny said archly. “Hah! Let's see you run off without me _now!”_

“You're screwed, dude,” Scott assessed.

Ron motioned at the vial uncertainly. “What I want to know is, how did Dumbledore get all that blood?”

The same thought had occurred to Harry. “While I was in the Hospital Wing, I guess. Could have happened any number of times.”

“Just thought he'd help himself one of those times, huh.”

“Guess so,” Harry said, feeling a bit queasy.

“You really shouldn't find this so odd, Ron,” Hermione said. “After all, your family clock downstairs works the same way.”

Ron and Ginny were both taken aback. “It does?” Ron gaped.

“Of course. How did you think it worked?”

“I didn't,” Ron admitted. “It just did, that's all I needed to know.”

“Well, now you understand,” Hermione said a trifle smugly.

“So the clock is full of blood, doesn't mean I have to like a vial of mine any better,” Harry muttered.

Ginny pressed the phylactery against Harry's chest, and they all witnessed the way it became even more incandescent. “Well, _I_ like it,” she said.

“I bet that could be used for some kind of weird sex. Most magic is conducive to weird sex, it's kinda fucked up,” Scott mused.

“Moving on!” Hermione said desperately. “We should have Gryffindor's sword, which was left to Harry, but the Ministry found a loophole of some sort and kept it.”

“That, we could use,” Ron opined.

“So all that's left is Scott's cube,” Hermione noted, lifting the cube curiously. “It's a magical strongbox, and evidently powerful enough to keep the Ministry out of it.”

“So it'll keep us out, too,” Harry said.

“Yes, but Scott already said he knew how to open it. Correct?” Hermione asked Scott.

Scott shrugged. “About ninety-percent sure. I mean, there's only one way to find out.”

Hermione held the cube out to him. “Give it a go, then.”

The Kharadjai reached out and took it, but merely placed it on the bed next to him. “That might not be the best idea. Whatever is inside is probably better off staying concealed so long as we're here at The Burrow. We don't even know how big it is.”

“It's probably much bigger on the inside,” Hermione conceded. “Which actually brings me to my next point. I've been working on this handbag…” She picked up the small, beaded handbag that had been sitting innocuously next to the other items. “I've placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on it, and I think I've got it all done correctly. It wasn't easy…”

“Fishing for compliments?” Scott asked wryly.

“Explaining the process,” Hermione said loftily. “Now, we should be able to fit whatever we need in here when we leave. I've already put a few changes of clothes for all of us, and I also have important books and some other things we might need. If you have anything you'd like kept safe, let me know soon.”

“Does it matter how much the stuff weighs?” Scott questioned.

“Not within reason. I can't fit a lorry in here, if that's what you're wondering.”

Harry had the feeling that Hermione would soon be a walking armoury. He also had a few ideas as to what he might store in the handbag. Brooms, maybe. Some of the things from his trunk.

He was broken from his thoughts when Ginny inhaled sharply. “What is it?” he asked her.

“Look!” She held up the phylactery, which had dimmed completely. “You're still breathing, right?”

“Er, yeah.” Harry smiled awkwardly. “Still here. It's all right now, see?”

The phylactery had regained its glow. Hermione walked over to examine it more closely. “I do hope it wasn't damaged somehow,” she said, tapping it with her wand. “Perhaps the Ministry weren't careful with the box.”

“That was me, actually,” Scott volunteered lazily.

“You?” Hermione said, rounding on him.

“Yeah. I interrupted the magic thread to Harry, just for a second. I recognise it now, though.” Scott flopped back onto the bed and closed his eyes, his position mirroring the one he had taken at the foot of Harry's bed during their first meeting, what felt like a lifetime ago. “It's a lot like the threads Ron and Ginny have, which makes sense considering what you said about the clock.”

“You break that — that 'thread', and I'll break you,” Ginny threatened. “You about stopped my heart!”

“Noted. I've obstructed a few one-way threads before; it's the ones like these that are reciprocal which get tricky. Your Trace thing is gone, Harry, in case you had any doubts.”

Harry had already cast a few minor spells since that morning. “I know. And it's absolutely brilliant, let me tell you.”

“Hmph,” Ginny grumbled crossly.

“Relax, Ginseng. We'll snap that spell off you soon enough,” Scott reassured her.

“It's getting dark,” Hermione fretted, looking out the window. “We'll be sent off to bed soon, and it'll be an early start tomorrow. Is there anything else that can't wait?”

“What about the ghoul and your parents?” Ron said. “Although, I don't know about the ghoul now, what with Ginny…”

“What about me?” Ginny said.

Hermione took a deep breath, and, in a halting voice, explained how she had placed a powerful Memory Charm on her parents and sent them out of the country. Ron had also prepared for his own absence: with Mr Weasley's help, he had disguised the ghoul in the attic as himself with a severe case of some kind of magical disease.

“But if I'm gone as well…” Ginny concluded.

“Right. But it's a bit too late to worry about it now,” Hermione sighed.

Harry was still crushed by the news about her parents. “Hermione… I'm…”

“Don't, Harry,” she said weakly. “It's done. I'm not sorry. At least they'll be far away from all this.”

“I just wish they didn't have to be,” Harry said, gritting his teeth against the guilt.

Ginny's arms wrapped around him, drawing him close. “She's right, Harry. Don't get all broody about this.”

“Nobody blames you, mate,” Ron said.

“Man up, Harriet,” Scott added.

“Thanks,” Harry said, grateful for his friends. “Except for you, Scott, you can sod off.”

“I'm sensing some hostility…”

Whatever further retorts Harry might have come up with were forestalled by a rapping at the entryway. It was Lila, pushing open the partially closed door and leaning inside.

“Wrap it up, kiddos,” she said. “Big day tomorrow. I suggest you hurry to a bathroom if you don't want to wait in line the rest of the night.” She was in her bedclothes and her hair was damp, proving she had already beaten the crowd. “Are you sleeping in here or on the floor downstairs?” she asked Scott.

“Hmmm, on the floor up here, or on the floor downstairs? Decisions, decisions…” Scott said sarcastically.

“Flip a coin. And Ginny, I need to see you before the wedding tomorrow, all right?”

“Sure,” Ginny agreed.

As everyone stood and stretched and readied for sleep, Harry reluctantly removed his arms from where they had been around Ginny's waist. “What was that about?”

“Probably about the Trace,” Ginny whispered, as the others in the household were now moving up the stairs.

“Right. Well, let's hope she can get that sorted.”

Harry still wasn't completely sold on the idea of bringing Ginny along, but it seemed inevitable. His arguments had been refuted and about all he had left was his irrational fear (or so he'd been told; he felt his fear was entirely rational). He'd have to make the best of it, along with everything else. Still, their impromptu council of war had helped a little.

He felt _slightly_ more prepared.


	6. The Enemy Without

**6**

**The Enemy Without**

**\---**

_“Fear is a primal response — it's not considered, but  
reflexive. Our race is exempt from so many of the perils  
that plague baseline humans; regardless, we are just as  
subject to sharp, involuntary terror as those who have an  
even greater reason to heed it.  
  
The belief that runs deep in the military — and is often taken  
to extremes within the specialized branches — is that fear can  
be, and **should** be, controlled. The ability to remain calm in  
the face of terror is highly prized among all levels of  
field agents and eternally sought after by the Imperiarchy.  
When unable to find it, they create it. S.P.E.A.R¹ has always  
been intended to emphasize that no matter what the rank  
or individual experience, panic is an unacceptable reaction to  
any circumstance. They call it uneconomical, obstructive, and  
without use. The fundamental reason is far more dangerous: it is  
contagious.”  
  
_1: Subsistence, Perception, Endurance and Agility Regimen  
__  
—The Tip of the SPEAR: Kharadjai Republic Special Forces and the  
                        Purview War

\--- 

Ron shifted uncomfortably in his dress robes, pulling at the collar. About the only thing they had to recommend them was that they weren't old; they were new, clean and well-fitted, for a change. So at least he didn't have to attend Bill's wedding wearing something that should have been binned a decade ago.

He tugged at the collar again. Nice robes were a scant comfort when he was expected to greet a thousand effing people whose names he couldn't remember, and then find them on the seating chart.

“When is everyone supposed to arrive?” he asked Fred, who was standing closest to him.

Fred flipped out his pocket watch. “Well, let's have a look… As I thought, everything goes tits up in five, four, three…”

He was a bit off, but, no more than a handful of seconds after he finished his count, guests began Apparating in just beyond the edge of the grounds.

Harry was studying the seating chart again, appearing very uncomfortable. Or, at least Ron assumed he was uncomfortable. It was hard to tell as Harry had taken Polyjuice that morning, and assumed the form of a red-haired Muggle from the village. Now, he was 'Cousin Barny'. It was supposed to be a protective measure, though Ron didn't really see the point. Even the Death Eaters couldn't be stupid enough to think Harry would be somewhere else on a Weasley's wedding day, off by himself.

Nobody had asked Ron's opinion, though, as usual.

As the guests approached, Ron turned slightly to give Scott's distant form an envious eye. The lucky git had been recruited by Lila to help with the catering; although he wasn't blatantly stealing anything, his mouth always seemed to be full. The bastard was stuffing himself whilst Ron and Harry did the real work.

“We need a system for all the younger witches,” George was saying. “I get first choice, I think that's fair.”

“Hang on there, old man, nobody's picking through your leftovers,” Fred protested. “We'll do this proper like: anyone have a coin on them?”

Ron didn't know why they were even bothering to discuss it. “Me and Harry are already taken, you sods. Do what you like.”

George nodded. “Yes, that's right — you _are_ , aren't you. That reminds me, Harry… Charlie was saying we should sit down and have a talk with you, at your earliest convenience.”

Straightening his collar one last time, Ron gave the seating chart another once over. “Shut it, they're here.”

Seating all the newcomers was a bloody nightmare; he didn't know two-thirds of them and all the cousins from Fleur's side either had incomprehensible accents or didn't speak English at all. Ron and Harry did the best they could, and Fred and George spoke a few phrases in French, but it quickly became apparent they were going to need help.

“Oi, Ha— er, Barny. I've just had an idea,” Ron said, walking up to his friend. “Scott speaks French, let's foist these frogs off on him.”

“They'll all keep bothering him if they know he understands,” Harry pointed out.

“And?”

Harry grinned. “I'll go get him.”

A couple of minutes later, Harry reappeared with an obviously reluctant Scott. “—just ask them for a _name_ , Barny, this isn't particle science! _Quel est votre nom?_ There, you're set.”

Harry just handed him the seating chart. “Look, the faster you do this, the faster we can be done.”

With that, Ron and Harry each seized one of Scott's arms and practically threw him at the unseated Delacours who had gathered to converse.

“Uh… _Bonjour et bienvenue. Puis-je vous aider à trouver vos chaises?”_ Scott said grudgingly.

With that problem taken care of, Ron found himself with a bit of time to mingle. He went looking for Hermione, with the vague idea that maybe if he spent time with her before the wedding proper, she wouldn't ask him to dance afterwards. The more he thought about that, the less likely it seemed.

The weather was perfect for a wedding. The decorations were a bit much for Ron's taste, though he supposed it all fit together well enough. He might have paid a bit more attention to everything for use in the eventuality of his own wedding, but, seeing as he might not survive the rest of the year, there wasn't much point in worrying about it. That was about as far as he was willing to go with the whole 'inevitable death' thing, though. Ron, along with Hermione, still tended to find Harry's fatalism annoying. At least Scott and Ginny were positive about the future (which probably should have been scant comfort: Scott was paid to keep their spirits up and Ginny usually just wanted Harry to stop brooding). And who knew what Lila was thinking.

Ron grinned as he thought of the uproar Lila had caused earlier. As she had requested the night before, Ginny went to see her before everyone filed out into the garden. Ron hadn't been present, showering at the time, but, as Hermione told it, Lila had broken the Trace. Problem was, she had also broken a few other things.

Half the Weasleys in the household had rushed upstairs in a panic as Ginny's hand on the family clock spun around aimlessly, moving from 'Mortal Peril' to 'Lost' and eventually coming loose and falling off. They had found a very startled Ginny in her room, still alive and well.

Mum had fixed Ginny's connection to the clock whilst Dad had taken the thing halfway apart in an attempt to find the problem before having to abandon it for his wedding duties. It was still mostly in pieces. Fred and George had harried Ginny for the secret of her 'prank' until she threatened to hex them both, Ministry rules or no.

Ron just hoped that Lila had done the job right. If Ginny could be tracked by the spells she cast, it would be a short Horcrux hunt.

“Weasley,” a voice grunted from somewhere near Ron's left elbow. He turned to find the craggy visage of Mad-Eye Moody looking back at him. Ron braced himself.

“Hello,” Ron said politely, trying hard not to stare at Moody's whirling false eye. It was moving so fast the pupil was just a blur.

“Lot of power here today,” Moody said without preamble, not that Ron expected any small talk from him. “Nice to see you're all on guard, anyway… Those heavy wards are solid, but no replacement for constant vigilance.”

It hadn't been so long ago that Ron would have found such comments amusing. He understood that kind of paranoia a bit better, now. “Expecting trouble?”

“Always,” Moody growled. His magical eye came to an abrupt stop. “There she is. Over by the bubbly.”

Ron glanced towards the champagne table, but there was more than one woman there. “Who?”

“The Kharan girl. Lila, I think it was.” Both of Moody's eyes fixed on Ron, boring into him. “You watch that one, lad. She's got a look about her…”

Ron glanced that way again, this time spotting Lila. She was conversing amiably with several of Fleur's cousins. “What sort of look? Blonde, tall…?”

“Oh, she seems normal enough just now. Had a chat with her just a minute ago. Well-spoken, polite, bit distant. Pretty, if you like the type. Your brother obviously does.” Moody's expression darkened. “But it's in the eyes. You can't hide what you've seen, who you are. Not to someone else who knows.”

“Knows what?” Ron asked tensely.

“How to scrape the fear from your insides and leave nothing but the scars. I'm not daft, Weasley, I know what I look like. You think any of the other pretty young things here can see me and not want to look away?” Moody's eyes narrowed. “Not her. She was taking me apart. You understand, lad? She had me sized.”

Ron wished that Hermione, Harry or even Scott were present to smooth things over. Diverting Moody probably required a team effort. “At least you didn't duel, Mum would have been a bit shirty about that,” he said, trying humour.

Moody snorted derisively. “She's got a knife strapped to her left thigh. At that range I'd have had it in my throat before I could get my wand out. Not as young as I used to be.”

“Oh. Yeah, she's… good with pointy things. Mostly in the kitchen, though.” Ron really needed to stop talking.

“You watch that one,” Moody said again. “She's a different sort than the rest.”

That was the absolute truth, even though Ron couldn't confirm it. He just nodded, not trusting himself to reply further. As soon as Moody walked off, he let out a breath he hadn't know he'd been holding. “Blimey,” he muttered to himself.

“Ron!” Hermione walked up and looped her arm through his. “Did Moody want something?”

She was so lovely in her dress, that, for a moment, Ron forgot he should respond. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, or between her… “Um…”  
  
Her eyes sparkled teasingly. “Yes?”

He tried to get a hold of his hormones even as he moved his arm around her waist. “He was talking to Lila. I think he's on to her.”

Hermione's playful expression switched to a frown. “Drat. How did that happen?”

“I dunno. She has some sort of 'I-can-kill-you-with-my-little-finger' aura that equally mad bastards like him can detect. He said she was dangerous and I should watch her.”

“Well, she _is_ dangerous… But not to us, at least.”

Ron made a face of disbelief. “Were you there when she went after Fred and George after they jinxed her toothbrush? She's scary, she is.”

“Oh, she wouldn't have hurt them.” Hermione stilled, then added, “Not permanently.”

Ron wasn't willing to give her even that much credit. “Yeah, sure. Also, Harry never broods and Scott always tells the truth.”

Hermione swatted his arm gently. “You! She's not _that_ bad.”

“She and Scott are both nutters, and heavily armed, at that.”

Ron staggered awkwardly into Hermione when Scott came up behind him and unexpectedly threw a comradely arm over his shoulder. “Hey! This is the guy, this is my boy, right here! Hey, man—” Scott leaned in close to Ron's face and completely dropped the jovial act. “If you ever leave me alone with the full cast of _Les Misérables_ again I will fucking end you.”

Ron looked at Hermione. “See?”

Hermione only sighed. “Scott, if you can't watch your language at a wedding just because Ron left you with—”

“—a bunch of goddamn cheese-eating surrender monkeys—” Scott said over her.

“—our French guests, then there's really no hope for you. If you didn't want to be a translator, you shouldn't have let it slip that you speak the language in the first place.”

“I regret that deeply, now,” Scott said bitterly. “Whatever. Bye.”

“I think you mean, 'whatever, _au revoir_ ',” Hermione said pointedly.

Scott's face remained creased in anger, but he couldn't stop his lips from twitching upwards at Hermione's retort. He glared at her with comically narrowed eyes as he stomped off towards his assigned seat.

“That was brilliant,” Ron said, trying not to laugh too loudly.

“That was mean,” Hermione corrected. “But he had it coming for _so_ many things.” She put her arm around Ron's again. “Come on, looks like it's time for the ceremony.”

“Bugger. And here I was beginning to think we got to just stand around, talk and eat.”

“We get to do that afterwards.”

The ceremony was fine enough, not that Ron had a whole lot to compare it to. He didn't understand why so many of the women felt the need to get all teary. He spent most of the time alternating between resisting the urge to tap his foot and staring at the back of Xenophilius Lovegood's head, which was shaped a bit like one of the rocks in the front garden. Luna, at least, was dry-eyed. She moved up a notch in Ron's estimation for that.

Scott and Lila were sitting side by side. Lila was ramrod straight in her seat, her full attention focussed forward and her eyes as soft as Ron had ever seen them. Scott was slumped awkwardly in his chair and perpetually looked as if he were a few seconds away from falling asleep. Ron could sympathise. Hermione was tightly clutching Ron's sleeve, her eyes shiny with tears, and he just hoped she didn't decide that his sleeve made a good handkerchief. He didn't know what to make of the look on Harry's borrowed face. That was becoming a trend. At least they, like Ron, were seated. Poor Charlie, Ginny, and Gabrielle had to stand for the entire thing, being the best man and bridesmaids, respectively.

Being able to observe most everyone did provide Ron with some vital information. He spotted Viktor Krum, the grouchy git, and resolved to keep Hermione away from him. And Great-Aunt Muriel was the last person on Earth he wanted to get stuck at a table with during the reception. Perhaps he could talk Scott into staking out a private area, free from undesirables. The Kharadjai never seemed to have an issue being disagreeable, and nobody expected courtesy from an American, anyway.

Then Bill and Fleur were man and wife and so on, and so forth… Ron had lost his patience about halfway through and wanted nothing more than to stand up. He was given the chance when everyone rose to applaud. The sides of the tent were opened, the chairs were removed with a grand magical flourish, and the far more pleasant aspect of the wedding began.

He searched for a suitable table as the band struck up a tune. He'd lost track of Harry in the crowd (which was easy to do, with Harry no longer sporting his distinctive messy black hair), but Hermione and Ginny were with him. Scott had also been following; he'd made it a few steps before being accosted by Gabrielle, eager to dance.

 _“Danse avec moi, Scott!”_ she'd insisted, tugging at his hands.

 _“D'accord,”_ Scott had said without much enthusiasm. _“Vous pourriez avoir à m'aider, je ne sais pas cette chanson.”_

They left him to his dancing, picking up Neville and Luna along the way. The five friends took their places around the table.

“It's funny how he humours her; it seems so incongruous with the rest of his personality,” Hermione mused, watching Scott twirl Gabrielle around. “I suppose he was the same way with Kylie.”

“That's a lovely dress, Luna,” Ginny said to her friend.

“Thank you.” Luna seemed a bit more focussed than usual, perhaps because all of that focus was on Neville. “I wanted to match Daddy's outfit, but I also wanted Neville to see me and like it.”

Neville bashfully slouched down in his seat. “I always like seeing you.”

“Taking notes?” Hermione said to Ron after Neville's heartfelt declaration.

“Come off it,” Ron grumbled. “It's easy to be lovey-dovey when you get an opening like that.”

Ginny was searching the crowd. “Where's Harry?” she wondered, lowering her voice. “How am I supposed to spot him when all our cousins look the bloody same…”

Lila wandered over to their table. “Ah, this must be the party table. Is this seat taken?” Without bothering to find out if it was or not, she sat down. “I love weddings. Planning them, not so much.”

“It has been a lovely wedding, but you may have a point,” Hermione agreed.

Lila leaned forward on her elbows, addressing Ron and Ginny. “I know you guys will be taking off soon. I wanted you to be aware, if you weren't already, that I'll be staying here to keep an eye on things.”

“Thank you, Lil. I'll feel a lot better with you here to watch the family,” Ginny said softly.

Ron nodded shortly. “Yeah, me, too.”

“Neville, Luna,” Lila said, “you'll be at Hogwarts, which makes things more difficult. Scott will try to stay in contact with you. That said, if something comes up and he can't be reached, send me a letter or use the Floo or do whatever you can to reach me immediately.”

“We'll try,” Luna said, uncharacteristically grave.

“You might have the worst of it, all things considered. Be strong. And if things get too bad, leave.” Lila pointed a finger at them. “I don't care about the laws or your parents or the stupid Trace or whatever — if things really go downhill at Hogwarts, you get hold of me or Scott and we will get you out of there. Full stop.”

“But… how?” Neville asked.

“You let us worry about that.”

Ron gripped Hermione's hand beneath the table, the relaxed mood of the wedding dispelled by Lila's words. Reality was fast approaching.

Having said her piece, Lila left them. Shortly after, Neville and Luna also went to dance; or rather, Luna went to wriggle about abstractly and Neville went to stand awkwardly nearby. Ron felt a twinge of guilt as he watched them. They had been absent for some very important events.

“Do you think they'd be better prepared if we'd told them everything?” he said to Hermione.

“That's just the way it happened; they couldn't be around as often…” she said regretfully.

“I'm just worried about them, going back to Hogwarts without us,” Ron said roughly. He blinked in surprise when Hermione pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I'm so proud of you, Ron,” she told him, her eyes suspiciously shiny again. “I really am.”

Ron coloured a bit, shifting gracelessly in his seat. “What's brought this on?”

“Oh, nothing,” she sighed, placing her head on his shoulder. “Just you being yourself.”

Ron rested his cheek on top of her soft hair. “Well… That's all right, then.”

***---~**~---***  

“Potter — a word…”

Before the interruption, Harry had been looking for his friends in the press of people. He desperately needed to sort out a few things, he needed their insight. He'd been speaking to Elphias Doge about Dumbledore, wanting to get the truth from the man who had known the Headmaster well enough to write his obituary. Doge had refuted the Skeeter article that had so infuriated Harry, but then Ron's Great-Aunt Muriel had broken into the conversation and contradicted Doge on every point.

Harry's mind was spinning with new information — Dumbledore had once had a sister, who'd died under mysterious circumstances. That, along with his friendship with the infamous Grindelwald, the imprisonment of his father, the falling out with his brother… Harry had known _none_ of it! That wasn't even including Dumbledore's roots in Godric's Hollow, the very place Harry's parents had lived.

He didn't know what to think. He'd stopped for a moment and leaned against a tent pole; lessons flashed through his memory, trying to provide calm and context. Words spoken out in the darkened woods and snow — the intangibility of truth, the power of lies. Information was ammunition. Harry _needed_ to speak with his friends, because he didn't know if what he'd been handed was explosive.

Mad-Eye Moody had just asked for a moment of time that Harry wasn't especially willing to give. Still, he turned towards Moody, not bothering to ask how the Auror had known it was him. “Yes?”

Moody stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I just had an interesting conversation with the groom…”

Harry thought he knew where this was going; he'd seen Mad-Eye talking to Lila earlier. “I'm guessing it wasn't about married life.”

Moody made a hacking sound that might have been a laugh. “What would I know about that? No, the subject was much more familiar, to me and you both — a battle at Hogwarts.”

Harry wasn't sure how to approach the situation. Luckily, he had a minute to think about it as Moody continued talking.

“Peculiar thing, that battle… Lot of Death Eaters dead — and good riddance — but from Muggle weapons, not wands. Used by her,” Moody jerked his head in Lila's direction, “as Bill tells it. Not a bad tactic, altogether. Most wizards won't see that coming. Still, it's unusual. But maybe not as much as where she and her kid brother came from in the first place, eh, Potter?”

“America?” Harry hazarded. He found himself unexpectedly grateful that his Polyjuiced form made his emotions far less obvious.

“The accent's right, I'll grant you that,” Moody grunted. “Look, Potter… I don't really care if you know something about this. Dumbledore trusted you. He let that Kharan lad into his school. Arthur's got good sense, and he let the tall blonde lass into The Burrow. So if you trust these Kharans, you have your reasons. But if you don't, I'm telling you now — they're dangerous. That girl might look like the latest model for _Witch Weekly,_ but she killed more than a few men that night at the school. And from what I hear, her brother might have, too.”

Harry nodded grimly. “I know.”

“Then I'll quit wasting your time,” Moody growled. “Just one thing, Potter — if I survive this round with the Dark bastards, I'd like an explanation. Unanswered questions are a bloody bad itch.”

“I'll tell you, I swear. I… have a few questions like that right now, myself. About Dumbledore,” Harry finished. He was almost afraid to bring it up, but if Moody knew something…

Moody's mouth thinned into a pale, lopsided slash. “Been reading that rubbish in the _Prophet_ , have you?”

“Sort of. I just… he never said anything about having a sister, or Godric's Hollow, or… any of it.” Harry tried to hide the hurt in his voice.

“Some things a man doesn't want to talk about. I should think you'd understand that, Potter,” Moody said gruffly.

Harry felt a flash of anger. Dumbledore had known all of those things about Harry, every last one. “I suppose.”

Moody huffed out a short breath in apparent irritation. “I can't help you, not the way you want. I don't make it my business to pry or gossip. He was a strong man who always did right by me and wrong by the Dark, and that should be good enough for anybody.”

It had been enough for Harry, once. “Yeah… Well, thanks anyway.”

Moody nodded. “Constant vigilance, Potter. You watch your arse out there or you're liable to lose it.”

“I will.”

And with that, Moody was gone. As he went back to searching for his friends, Harry was glad that it had been Mad-Eye who'd finally cornered him. The old Auror's practicality and discretion had saved Harry a real headache in trying to explain things. Moody was a realist, the type to worry about the 'why' after the fact and simply accept the hand that was offered when war left little recourse. Harry could strongly relate.

He eventually found his friends; most of them were out on the dance floor. It was comforting to see that, even when dancing with Ron, Hermione still had her handbag with her. Back behind the crowd, Harry found Scott sitting by himself at one of the more out of the way tables.

“I expected you'd be at the centre of the party,” Harry said, sitting next to Scott.

“I already did my time on the floor. I'm a free man for the moment — Gabby was distracted by pudding.” Scott leaned back in his chair, stretching.

Harry lowered his voice. “I've just had a talk with Doge and need some other opinions, I don't know what to make of this…”

“Can it wait?”

“Wait?” Harry looked more closely at Scott and noticed that his face was a bit strained. “What's wrong?”

“I'm not sure. I didn't expect things to accelerate so soon, but the shape is behaving—”

He was interrupted by cries and shouts of alarm from the guests. A silvery blur darted through the crowd, stopping when it reached the middle of the tent. Harry's eyes widened as he recognised the Patronus spell, in the form of a lynx. The apparition froze for a long moment. When it moved again, it opened its mouth and spoke in the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

**_"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."_ **

Panic erupted. The guests scattered, Disapparating or searching for friends and family. That alone proved there were already Death Eaters nearby — there had been wards that prevented Apparition. It was total chaos.

Harry jumped up from his seat, wand at the ready. He turned to tell Scott that they needed to find the others, only to see the other boy still sitting calmly in his chair. He looked like the Patronus had just informed them that the wedding might be gently rained on.

 _“Postrēmo,”_ he muttered. “Well, now we know what the deal with the shape was.”

And just like that, Harry felt his heart rate decrease. Scott's tranquillity in the face of an imminent attack was comforting (and Harry knew that was probably the point). He began to consider the situation more dispassionately.

“The Death Eaters are here,” he said to Scott, shouting over the panicking guests. He pointed towards the indistinct shapes at the edges of the Weasley property. “They'll need a minute to drop the rest of the wards; where's Lila?”

“She'll be gathering everyone to get them into the house, it has protections the yard doesn't,” Scott said, standing. “We can get out in the meantime.”

“No. Not when they can still get surrounded,” Harry said stubbornly. “We need to draw these bastards off.”

Scott smiled approvingly. “I like it. Come on, let's find Ron and Hermione. They should be over this way.”

They found Ron and Hermione a handful of seconds later; the pair had been searching for them in turn. Neville and Luna were close behind.

“Harry!” Hermione yelled, gripping him a fierce hug. “We didn't know where you went!”

“Afraid I might leave without you?” Harry said with a wry smile.

“Don't act like you wouldn't! Come on, we've got to Disapparate before they get through the wards!”

Harry ignored her insistence. “Where's Ginny?”

Neville pointed towards the other side of the tent. “I saw her over that way, just a second ago.”

“Not a bad way, the enemy is thinnest on that side,” Scott said, already moving in that direction.

“What? Harry, what's going on?” Hermione demanded, her eyes wide and frightened.

“I'm distracting them so the family can get into the house; are you coming or not?” Harry wasn't offering again. He'd prefer to have his friends stay with Lila, anyway.

“Coming,” Ron said firmly. His wand hand was steady despite his shaken demeanour.

Harry led the way through the rapidly thinning crowd, picking out the distant line of Death Eaters at the rim of the woods. Scott was correct: there were fewer that way than towards the path and The Burrow.

The air was beginning to fill with spells. A bright light ripped through the tent canopy over Harry's head and he heard Shield Charms being shouted. He glanced to his right as he ran; a dark blob of shapes were moving together towards the house. Spells were emanating from the gathering more thickly than anywhere else, and he knew that had to be the Weasleys. But if the Death Eaters weren't given good reason to leave, Ron's family would be trapped inside the house. Despite the heavy protections on the structure, a protracted siege was a dangerous possibility.

A Stunner rang loudly off a nearby tent pole, casting brief illumination in a flash of red. Harry stumbled and nearly fell when a slim form ran into him headlong.

 _“Harry!”_ Ginny gasped. She disentangled herself from his arms and grabbed his hand as they ran together. “Where are we going? Lila said I needed to find you!”

Harry furrowed his brow, angered that Lila had willingly left Ginny behind. He'd have a few words for the Kharadjai when they next met. “We're going to break through the Death Eaters up ahead and draw them away from The Burrow,” he panted.

The dark figures ringing the property were drawing closer. The last of the wards must have fallen. Harry increased his speed, hoping the cover of twilight would disguise his intent long enough to smash aside the few Death Eaters ahead and reach the cover of the trees.

Scott shot ahead of the group with unnatural velocity. Harry could hear the closest Death Eater shouting in alarm.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! DROP YOUR WA—” the Death Eater roared, only to be silenced with an audible expulsion of air as Scott kicked him full force in the stones.

“Blimey!” Ron choked somewhere behind Harry.

The Death Eater's agony didn't last long. When he slumped forward, Scott grabbed the back of his hood and pushed him down further, proceeding to slam a knee into the man's face. There was a nasty crunching noise (probably the nose, Harry guessed) and the Death Eater went limp.

The other Death Eaters nearby were close enough to witness the act; spells began hurtling in their direction.

“ _PROTEGO!”_ Harry shouted, deflecting two Stunners and what he thought was a _Diffindo_. He flinched but kept moving, extending his arm to block another spell from hitting Ginny. When it rebounded it left a small crater in the grass, apparently a weak Blasting Curse.

The group's training in Dumbledore's Army was proving its worth as everyone was furiously casting without pause: Stunning Spells and Disarming Charms flew out in all directions, striking unprotected Death Eaters and forcing the others to shield themselves or find cover. The bulk of the enemy force was still on the other side of the front garden, but Harry knew they needed to reach the woods before they were overwhelmed.

Scott knew that, too. He hadn't even bothered to draw his wand. Instead, the Kharadjai teen had doubled back and was moving like a wraith, low to the ground. He curved out and then swept back in towards the Death Eaters to the left, flanking them.

Harry dropped his Shield Charm and raised his wand simultaneously with a Death Eater who had managed to deflect several spells from Luna and close the distance. _“STUPEFY!”_ he shouted, ducking to the side just in time to avoid the masked man's answering Stunner.

He scampered across the ground as a spell cut through the grass where he had been a moment before. He deflected the next curse, and the bright spark of the rebounding spell lit the night enough for Harry to see a second Death Eater — who had been sprinting up to reinforce the one duelling Harry — fall flailing to the earth as Scott slammed an elbow into his throat.

The nearer Death Eater heard his comrade's thick choking; he turned to look and Harry's Stunner rocketed into the back of his head, throwing him violently forward. He didn't get back up.

Harry straightened and resumed running, taking stock of the rest of his friends. Ron and Hermione had disabled their opponent whilst Neville and Luna had the last Death Eater pinned behind a tree which was shaking as spells pummelled it, shedding bark and leaves.

Realising his predicament, the hapless Death Eater decided to run. Stupidly, he did so in wrong direction. Blindly casting a Blasting Curse at the soil to cover his retreat, he sprinted out from behind the flora as Harry tried to lead properly through the dirt thrown in the air.

Then, the Death Eater jerked with an odd motion. He stumbled forward a few more steps seemingly by momentum alone, and collapsed to his knees.

With the dust clearing, Harry could see the hilt of a knife extending from the Death Eater's chest.

Scott ran up to the stricken man, and, in one smooth motion, pulled the knife from his chest and kicked him onto his back. Reaching down, Scott grabbed the Death Eater by his hood and bent his head backwards, exposing his throat.

 _“Scott, **no**!”_ Hermione shrieked out in horror.

Scott froze. Harry couldn't make out the expression on his face, but after a half-second of pause he released the Death Eater and gifted the helpless man with a solid kick to the head.

“Everybody go, keep moving,” Harry said, finding his voice. “Come on, it's not far now!”

A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that the last of the wedding guests had either escaped or been captured. There were no lights on in The Burrow, but Harry didn't have time to worry about that. A row of Death Eaters were making their way towards him, though not quickly. There must have been some confusion in their ranks as to what was happening.

The group hurried into the trees, stopping once they were concealed to catch their breaths and ease the adrenaline shock. Harry could scarcely believe they'd actually made it as far as they had; he'd been harbouring the fairly serious thought that he was just martyring himself so everyone else could get away.

Of course, they hadn't made it quite yet. He tried to plan as his friends huddled around him. “All right,” he breathed, sweat running down the back of his robes, “they're going to see those berks we just handled when they get close enough. With a little luck they'll follow us, but we need somewhere to go.”

“Do you think everyone else got to the house?” Ron asked.

“Lila wouldn't let them turn any lights on. With a hostile force outside the windows the last thing you want to do is provide a silhouette,” Scott explained.

Ron and Ginny both looked relieved at that, evidently having been extremely worried by the lack of life signs at The Burrow.

“What about your sister's flat? We could hide there; I doubt any of the Death Eaters know about it,” Hermione said to Scott.

“Sure, if we can get there,” Scott said.

Harry nodded. “I think we can make it.”

“Neville, Luna…” Hermione said hesitantly. “I hate to suggest it, but the two of you absolutely cannot be seen, not if you're going back to Hogwarts. You should probably just Disapparate back home.”

“No way!” Neville protested, looking outraged by the suggestion.

“It would be quite unseemly to leave you now,” Luna said, her voice uncommonly serious.

“No, she's right. Those blokes we just fought never got close enough to see you well, but we don't know if it's going to stay that way,” Harry said.

“But you need our help!” Neville said.

“I need you at Hogwarts!” Harry countered. “Luna's still got the Trace and without you there—”

“The Trace means fuck all with the Ministry gone!” Neville said stridently. Harry wasn't sure he'd ever heard the other boy swear before.

“Which is fine for tonight, but that won't last,” Scott cut in. “If you absolutely refuse to leave then we can discuss this at the apartment, because these guys are starting to get their shit together and we need to go _now.”_

“Right,” Harry said decisively, standing from his crouch. “Wands out, eyes open.”

They started moving along the tree line towards the back of The Burrow rather than going deeper into the woods. Minutes later, they could hear the shouts as the Death Eaters found their defeated compatriots.

Ginny was next to Harry every step of the way, picking through the brush and trying to minimise the noise she made. It was easier for her with her light, slim body than the most of the rest of them (though, somehow, Scott made hardly a sound). Harry thought about the men chasing them and fought down the fierce surge of protectiveness that ensued. It was not the time to think about how stupid he'd been to include Ginny in this madness. She should have been safe in The Burrow with the rest of her family.

“Any regrets, yet?” he asked her quietly as he pushed aside a branch so they could both pass.

“No. And if you ask me that again I'll hex _you_ instead of those Dark wankers,” she responded fiercely.

So much for that line of inquiry. Harry kept his mouth shut as they advanced further. The shouts from behind kept getting closer, an ominous sign. Unfettered by stealth, the Death Eaters were moving slightly faster.

“Hermione…” Scott began as they walked, using a conversational tone that was incredibly incongruous with the situation. “Do you know the incantation for the Entrail-Expelling Curse?”

“No, but I could find it easily enough,” Hermione whispered. “Is this really important?”

“If it does what I think it does — and it really should, considering the name — it could be useful. A spell like that has utility in combat.”

“It's not fatal. It was designed for medical purposes, the organs come out intact,” Hermione told him.

“Don't underestimate the shock value. You could inspire terror with a curse like that. Besides, nothing says they have to _stay_ intact.” Scott stopped talking abruptly and swivelled his head to look backwards. “Tom's friends have just about caught up. No point in being quiet — they sure aren't.”

The Death Eaters could be heard crashing through the woods, all rustling leaves and snapping twigs.

“Run!” Harry bit out.

They started moving as quickly as they could, which wasn't very fast considering all the obstacles and their hindering dress clothes. They could travel more easily on the open grass, but Harry didn't dare leave the concealment of the forest. The lack of open space was the only thing keeping the Death Eaters from bombarding them with spells.

 _“Laqueusi Crus!”_ Hermione chanted, jabbing her wand at the forest floor behind them. Harry had never heard of the spell before, but trusted that she knew what she was doing; she repeated it several times as they went along.

Harry had been half expecting to be reinforced by the Order at some point, but the further they went along the forest's edge the more apparent it became that they had been scattered, and were either long gone or in The Burrow itself. He just hoped his improvised distraction had allowed them to get away cleanly. The party had devolved into such a mess at the first sign of attack that he didn't know where anyone ended up who wasn't actually with him.

A couple minutes of further progress and Harry heard a pained yelp from behind. Hermione nodded in grim satisfaction. “That will be the first of the traps. They'll be moving slower now if they know what's good for them,” she said.

“Brilliant,” Ron panted, grinning at her. “I hope he lost a foot!”

“Nothing that dramatic, but it wasn't pleasant.”

Scott, who was ahead of the group, hopped over a fallen log and reached underneath it, flipping it out of the way. “I was wondering what you were doing.” He slammed his hands into another fallen tree that sat at an angle across the deer path they were on and grunted in frustration when it wasn't immediately removed. “Fucking teen form.”

They were now past The Burrow and moving parallel with the back garden. The sounds of pursuit were growing fainter, Harry noted with relief. Hermione's traps had done their job.

A few seconds later he nearly jumped out of his skin when an acute, reverberant noise sounded out across the area.

It came from the direction of the house. Harry spun to face it and saw that Ron's window was open. From inside the room came the faintest flicker of light and a rapid _SNAP-SNAP-SNAP_ that was sharp and clear, blended with a fuzzier echoing report. The staccato percussion beat against Harry's eardrum. The Death Eaters began yelling again, this time in fright.

It didn't take too long for the Death Eaters to start returning fire; the night was illuminated in multicolour once again as spells flew from the trees towards The Burrow. Some of them were dissipated by the wards, but Harry could see others being countered, proving that Lila was not alone.

Ron winced when a luckily aimed spell flew through his open window and briefly lit his room with an orange glow, followed by a muffled thud that Harry felt in his chest.

“There goes the furniture,” Ron grumbled.

Property damage was the least of their concerns. The Death Eaters appeared to be falling further behind, but Harry wasn't counting on that to last. The gunfire from The Burrow had stopped and he knew that Lila must have lost sight of her targets. That could have been because they had gone further into the woods, where the dip in elevation and thicker foliage would conceal them; or they were much closer behind Harry than they had seemed.

Either way, the clock was ticking. Harry knew they had to reach the river before the Death Eaters also emerged from the woods. There was no concealment between the end of the forest and the start of the town. He considered simply Apparating to Lila's flat. He'd been there before, and Ginny had as well.

“I think we're losing them!” Ginny remarked breathlessly. There were scratches on her face and hands, and her bridesmaid’s dress was smudged and torn.

“Should we slow down a bit to save our energy?” Neville wondered.

“No! Keep moving,” Harry said before anyone could start to relax. The entire point of their flight was to draw the bulk of the Death Eater force away from The Burrow, and that meant leading them to the town one way or the other. If they weren't distracted by the chase, they might get clever.

“If they think they aren't right behind us anymore, one of them is going to start using his brain and try to cut us off,” Scott said, echoing Harry's thoughts. The clatter of gunfire started up again from the direction of the house, the sound bouncing off the trees. “Argh, not now, Lil! Let them run!”

“What is she doing? We're trying to get them _away_ from house!” Harry said, frustrated.

“She doesn't know how incompetent they've been.” Scott nimbly ran up along the trunk of another fallen tree, digging his phone out from somewhere in his dress robes. “Here, the slope is clearer to the right up ahead, go down that way.”

Harry leaned backwards and slid down the hill where Scott had indicated, stopping at the bottom to catch Ginny. Hermione busied herself setting more magical traps along the incline whilst Scott dialled Lila. They didn't pause longer than half a minute before they resumed walking.

“It's me. Hold your fire, the OpFor is trailing. …Yeah, they're with us. We just hit the bottom of the hill back behind the house, how many Death Eaters are still up there? …Where? Yeah, just get back to me. …It's all in Hermione's bag, I'm set for now. We can link up if we have to. Okay. We're going to draw them to the end of the forest and then decide from there, just drop the wards when you can and get gone. Okay. You too, bye.” Scott hung up.

“Are they all right?” Ginny asked anxiously.

“Yeah, she's got the whole crop of redheads, minus two, inside the house. Once we pull the assholes following us down to the edge they're going to drop the emergency wards and Disapparate,” Scott explained.

Harry allowed his tension to ease a slight bit at that. “So they're still following us?”

Scott nodded. “Sounds like it. Lil is done shooting, so I imagine they'll rediscover their balls any second now.”

“Let's go, then,” Harry said, increasing his pace to the one they had set before.

As they went, Hermione drew closer to Harry. “Harry, I had a thought,” she said quietly. “We don't know if they've already put up a jinx on the area to stop us from Disapparating.  They can't on The Burrow, not with the wards up, but we aren't protected…”

“They might be too busy to have bothered,” Harry said, but he wasn't really that optimistic. “Look, if that's the case we'll ask Scott to get rid of it.”

Hermione appeared moderately reassured by that. “Try not to stand out in the open if there's another fight, Harry,” she said with an odd mixture of resignation and fondness. “You're too recognisable a target.”

Startled, Harry reached up and touched his face. The Polyjuice had worn off and he hadn't even noticed in the confusion. “I can't believe I didn't feel that.”

“Adrenaline,” Scott said, apparently having been listening in. “You can get shot and not know it.”

The woods had been thinning steadily since they'd arrived at the lower ground. It wouldn't be much longer before they reached the scrub brush that marked the end of forest and the beginning of field. The lights of Ottery St. Catchpole glittered up ahead in the night, glinting off the rippling water that lay between them and their destination. There was only one bridge nearby, part of the road that wound past The Burrow.

The night was still, save for the occasional Muggle car passing through the otherwise empty streets. Harry strained his ears, but could hear nothing above the sussurating grass and the hushed rushing of water. He knew his group of friends needed to make some decisions. With the Death Eaters having fallen behind, they had a bit of time in which to think things over.

“We don't have a lot of time, so let's make this quick,” he said hurriedly. “Nev, Luna — we've made it out, so you need to go. Scott, is there an Anti-Disapparation Jinx over us?”

Scott stilled for a moment, his eyes unfocussed. “There's some kind of area-effect spell behind us. I couldn't tell you what it is, but we're out from under it right now. I think… I think they're moving it as they go.”

“They'll have to recast it periodically, that's probably what's keeping them,” Hermione said.

“If they find us, they don't want us slipping away,” Harry said darkly.

Neville looked indecisive, while Luna's expression was unreadable. “Are you sure?” Neville said uncertainly.

“Yes! You've done all you can and I appreciate it more than I can say, but you _have_ to get out of here. We'll be leaving as well, it's not like you're just abandoning us,” Harry insisted.

“It's fine, mate. Good on you for staying this long,” Ron said to Neville.

Luna reached out and gripped Neville's hand. “Don't be long, Harry. We'll miss you.”

Neville set his jaw. “We'll take care of things for you at Hogwarts, Harry.”

“I know you will,” Harry said, fighting back a horrible combination of pride, gratitude and desperate fear for his friends.

Neville and Luna vanished with the loud crack typical of Disapparation. Harry knew he would breathe a little easier with them out of harm’s way. If only the rest of his friends were, too. Unfortunately, they were even harder to get rid of.

“Now what?” Ron asked. He was scanning the trees warily, his wand held tight.

Harry wasn't entirely certain. “I think going to Lila's flat is as good a plan as any, for now. Ginny and I know where it is, so that shouldn't be a problem.”

Ginny nodded. “All right. I'll take Hermione, and you take Ron and Scott. We'll Apparate into the living room, all right?”

“I don't suppose you've ever done Side-Along before?” Hermione asked a bit nervously.

“No… Would you rather Harry try to take all of us at once?” Ginny said tartly.

Harry was very much opposed to that. “Uh, no. I'm not doing that.”

“Guys, you need to do this, like, now. Whatever that area spell is, it's getting closer,” Scott interrupted them.

“Right. Come on, let's try it.” Harry held out his hands to Ron and Scott, trying to look more confident than he felt.

“Go ahead. I'll be right behind you, same as the cave,” Scott said, ignoring the offered appendage.

Harry was fine with that. Taking only Ron with him would be substantially easier. “Okay. Ginny, on the count of three. One… two… three!”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the flat where he and Ginny had spent quality time on a sofa covered with small pillows. The world condensed, pressed inwards until he felt as if he were riding the pressure front of a storm, a bullet spiralling out of a gun. The air roared, then twisted.

And he was gone.


	7. The Balance Unseen

**7**

**The Balance Unseen**

**\---**

_“To all 363 rd FFM officers who submitted post-operation_  
_complaints regarding the standing orders for Operation  
**redacted** : greatly deviated strategical and logistical_  
_applications must be ratified, at minimum, by Highground  
during active engagements or by the acting MOFC when  
assets are in play as determined by the mission parameters.  
While adaptation is expected and encouraged, the widespread  
disregard for Second Fleet's established jurisdiction on  
**redacted** is not acceptable without command-authorized_  
_alternatives or situational necessity (which shall be determined,  
__ex post facto, by a designated Imperiarchy CRC with input from  
observers and referred POR).  
  
Second Fleet command has issued several statements regarding  
this matter which are required reading for all commissioned  
officers currently assigned to or pending assignment with the  
Operation **redacted** attachments. It is the hope of the_  
_current **redacted** regional command that any continued_  
_issues with Second Fleet oversight can be resolved without further_  
overtures towards insubordination.”

—Second Fleet Regional Command missive regarding recent difficulties with attached Fifth Fleet Marines

\--- 

_RE: New Orders:_

_Requested more than a single sheet of toilet paper._

—Praefectus Minor Phylla Galbarden, in reply to written orders from  
Forward Command, Operation Lifted Trowel 

\--- 

Harry woke up on his side, squinting against the light shining into his eyes. When his vision cleared, he pushed himself up on one elbow and took in his surrounds. He was momentarily panicked by the unfamiliarity of them.

The walls of the room were blank white. There was a half-opened wardrobe opposite the bed on which he had awakened, with a few shirts hanging inside. The light which shone on him emanated from the open door next to it. There must have been a window somewhere beyond, as he couldn't see any lights that were on.

His heart rate slowed and the panic receded once he remembered what had happened. He was in the Kharan flat, still on Scott's bed where he had passed out the night before. A gentle snoring from somewhere behind him was proof of Ron's presence. Harry would have been fine with taking the sofa, but Scott had insisted it was his; only in retrospect did that seem suspicious. Perhaps the sofa was better than the bed.

Hermione and Ginny were in Lila's room. Everyone had been so knackered the previous night that they had automatically fallen into such 'appropriate' sleeping arrangements without questioning whether they were really necessary any longer.

Harry mentally retreated from that thought. He couldn't speak for Ron and Hermione, but he wasn't sure he was ready to share a bed with Ginny, temping as it seemed.

He rolled off the bed and tugged on his shoes. He noted with distaste they were his nice ones from the wedding; they had all fallen asleep in their tattered, filthy clothing. Getting more suitable clothes from Hermione's handbag would be a top priority (as was utilising Scott's shower). Harry walked out the doorway, deciding to let Ron sleep. There was no point in rousing everyone until he had some kind of plan.

The large sofa had been vacated when Harry emerged from Scott's room. The door to Lila's room was still closed. There were footsteps and the banging of cupboards from the direction of the kitchen, where Harry found Scott making a breakfast far too large for just himself.

“Is that for all of us?” Harry asked hopefully, eyeing the steaming bacon that Scott had piled on a plate near the stove.

“Good morning!” Scott said with pronounced cheer. “Yes, this is a group breakfast; you can thank me later and you can thank me right now, for double the thanks!”

“Thanks. Any particular reason you're so bright this morning?” Harry wondered, sinking into a nearby chair.

“I'm still riding high on our recent triumph. Also, I didn't sleep at all last night and I'm a mite wired.”

Harry wasn't feeling especially triumphant. “What the hell are you on about?”

Scott deftly flipped the pancakes he was making with one hand, pointing the other at Harry. “Last night, you dumbhole! Everything went according to plan, it was perfect. We fought the enemy, lured them away from civilian targets, and then cleanly escaped.”

That wasn't exactly how Harry remembered it. “Um, we just made everything up as we went along. Also, we were outnumbered, overpowered and terrified.”

“And took no casualties. Harry, I know that you're new to this whole 'battle' thing, but take it from a guy with a lot of engagements under his belt — if you get away and nobody dies while you're 'outnumbered, overpowered and terrified', that's a success story. Never mind that we actually accomplished our objective. With a bunch of kids. In the dark.”

“All we did was run…”

Scott scoffed dismissively. “We hindered and evaded. With a bunch of untrained _kids_. In the _dark_. If I was Riddle — and I'm _way_ too good-looking for that — I'd be reassessing my element leaders at this point.”

“Okay, then what would you have done if you'd been them?” Harry challenged.

“Well, first I'd have consulted Hermione as to what spells we could use. Then I'd have actually, you know, utilised my superior numbers to flank and surround you. Split up the left, right and middle, Disapparate further forward and double back. Bring up that area jinx so you can't get out, leave one side open to drive you towards that clearing. You know, that clearing by that hill? With the thing?”

“Hermione would have been with me,” Harry said dryly. “I don't see the point of leaving us a way out.”

“Never encircle an enemy completely. Nobody fights harder than a man who knows he's trapped. Also, a surrounded force has a tendency to punch a hole through one side, which can put you in a very nasty position. The trick is to make the enemy _think_ they can get away. Then they go where you want them to.”

“Never encircle the enemy completely,” Harry repeated. He took the lesson seriously, memorising it as he always did whenever Scott imparted advice of a militaristic nature. Such things might someday be crucial. “No exceptions?”

“Well, that's technically more applicable to a large land battle, but when you've got guns and wands a circle is also going to cross your own lines of fire. If you're going to put your enemy's back up against something, the best approach is actually a sort of staggered 'V'. But, there are always exceptions. Understanding when they apply is a very valuable skill.”

“Do I have time to learn it?” Harry asked, only partially joking.

“I don't know. You've got a decent amount of raw talent, so let's see how that pans out.”

“Great. I'll be dead before I learn anything.”

Scott studied him. “Hmmm… Your despair is most likely symptomatic of a lack of protein. Quick, eat these eggs! Hurry!”

Harry dutifully began eating the eggs Scott had slid across the table to him, though he did it with considerably less haste than suggested. “Seen any Death Eaters snooping about?”

“No, but I have a limited view from these windows.” Scott crossed the room and peered out through the shades. “We could be anywhere, far as they know. You aren't at Privet Drive, you aren't at The Burrow and you aren't at Hogwarts. That pretty much covers all your known haunts.”

“I don't get out much,” Harry admitted.

“Hey, all those years of being a shut-in are finally paying off.”

Harry took another bite of his eggs, suddenly ravenous. He hadn't eaten much at the wedding, and the Death Eaters hadn't paused in their pursuit so they could all have a snack. “Those pancakes done yet?”

Scott's cooking was unexpectedly good. Harry didn't know why that was so surprising, except that Scott didn't really seem the type. Of course, neither did Lila, and she had made some wicked biscuits and cake. Harry was just happy to know that there would be someone to provide edible meals, should circumstances require it.

Harry and Scott ate and cooked, respectively, in a companionable silence for about five minutes before Hermione appeared from Lila's room, yawning widely and sporting a head of hair even bushier than usual. Her wedding dress was badly wrinkled and dusty.

“Good morning,” she said sleepily. “Oh! Are those for me?”

“How do you want your eggs?” Scott said by way of response.

“Scrambled, please. I don't like it when they're watery. Harry, you look awful.”

“Thanks,” he said through a mouthful of bacon.

“We all need to change… I'll get my handbag in a bit. Scott, are you going to use the clothes you already have here?”

“Yeah,” Scott affirmed. He motioned at Harry. “Dude, once you're done get some clothes from Hermione and jump in the shower. We'll rotate everyone through the bathroom when they finish up eating.”

“I'll go after Harry, then,” Hermione said. She sat down at the table, eyeing the eggs Scott was making expectantly.

“Wait, I just had an even _more_ efficient idea!” Scott proclaimed. “We'll double up to save time! Harry, you shower with Ginny. Hermione, you shower with Ron. Then, you can all jump back in with me for a second shower to get clean on account of the sex you had during the first shower.”

“I think my eggs are ready,” Hermione said tersely.

“Would you prefer to shower with me, first? Before you respond, keep in mind that you could hurt my feelings.”

“Scott, it's a bit early for this,” Hermione sighed. “Can I have my eggs, please?”

Scott looked a bit put out that Hermione hadn't risen to his bait. “Fine.”

Harry thought that things would be a lot calmer amongst his friends if Hermione could just learn to disregard Scott's deliberate needling _all_ the time. He still hadn't found out what had happened between them at The Burrow, but it was obvious they'd had a brief falling out. He hoped they'd settled things. The journey ahead would be hard enough without inner tensions.

Ginny wandered into the kitchen and flopped down into one of the other chairs. She looked tired, though a lot of that had to do with the ragged state of her dress and the smudges on her face. “Morning… I thought I smelled breakfast. Give it here, Scott.”

He frowned at her. “What's the magic word?”

_“Avada Kedavra.”_

“That's two words! I said _word,_ singular!”

“Well, let me have some of that food and then I'll thank you if it isn't shite,” Ginny said in a reasonable tone.

“All right, that seems fair.”

Harry turned to Hermione, who was using her fork to arrange her eggs in a neat pile. “Can you get some of my spare clothes for me? I'm going to clean up.”

She obligingly went into Lila's room and retrieved a change of clothing for Harry. He dropped the bundle on the sink in the loo and sorted through it whilst the shower warmed up. They were all bits of Muggle clothing, of which he had little that still fit him. He needed to buy more if they were going to be moving outside of the wizarding world.

When he stepped under the spray, the water at his feet ran dark with debris and the heat stung like acid on his scraped legs and fingers, but it was a good feeling. He had survived the attack and, much more importantly, so had his friends.

He put the palms of his hands against the wall and pressed his forehead to the slick tiles, letting the water course through his hair and down his back. He breathed, slowly, in and out. The steam was calming, almost medicinal. If he could keep his head, plan everything out, stay hidden… They might have a chance, however slim. He had more help now than he'd ever thought he would.

He snorted self-deprecatingly, opening his mouth to let the water run in and spitting it back out. More and more, it seemed like his thoughts of going it alone had been nothing but delusions. He couldn't even get Ginny to stay behind, never mind Ron and Hermione. It wasn't like he had lived to see what would have been his seventh Hogwarts year all by himself. Not even close. He'd have died in his first without his friends. Why had he thought he was strong enough to handle the war alone?

Maybe Scott was right. Maybe Harry _was_ retarded or something. It would explain a lot.

“Harry?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice broke him from his contemplation. Outside the sliding shower doors was an outline mottled by the steam and frosted glass. The pitch of the voice and the bright red hair crowning the figure identified it as being Ginny, who had, for some reason, entered the loo. Harry couldn't remember if he'd locked the door or not.

“You're not trying to drown yourself, are you?” she asked with obvious amusement.

Harry didn't think she could see anything through the distorted glass, but he covered himself instinctively. “Um, kind of busy here, Ginny…”

“Hmmm… Anything I could help with?” she inquired in a laughing tone.

Oh, God. How did he respond to that? “Well…”

“I'd probably lend you a hand, if you asked nicely enough.”

“Uh…”

She sighed impatiently. “We're flirting, Harry. Can't you at least try a little?”

“We don't usually flirt while I'm starkers,” Harry said defensively.

“Would it help if I were starkers, too? Would that be more fair?” she asked with a grin in her voice.

There was only so much blood in Harry's body, and, seeing as his brain was being starved due to it being hoarded by one organ in particular, he was having difficulty thinking of an appropriate response. That might have been bollocks, medically speaking, but that was what it felt like. “No. I wouldn't be much interested in talking, then,” he managed to force out.

Ginny giggled. “No, I suppose you wouldn't. You're having a hard enough time now and I'm only standing here!”

She had no idea how hard. “Right, just standing. Because it's perfectly normal to walk in on a bloke while he's in the shower and say things to drive him mad,” Harry said even as he was fervently hoping that she'd do this sort of thing more often.

“Yeah? Should I keep you company more often, when you shower?” Ginny said throatily, and with a start, Harry realised she was much closer to the glass than she had been.

Harry couldn't deal with that. He wanted to have some sort of witty response, he wanted to keep the game going, but in the intimacy of the setting and without the armour of his clothes, he was helpless. _“Ginny…”_ he groaned, not sure if he should tell her to leave, tell her to stay, or tell her to get in.

At that moment, fate decided to spare Harry from choosing. Regrettably, a far worse problem was created.

The door popped open again and Ron stuck his head in. “Mate, I don't fancy taking a cold shower, hurry — GINNY!”

Ginny stood unaffected. “What?”

“What the bloody hell are you doing in here?! GET OUT!” Ron shouted.

 _“YOU_ GET OUT!” Ginny yelled back. The sound bounced around the tight quarters with a volume that was painful.

With the door open, Harry could hear Hermione attempting to intervene whilst Scott was laughing uproariously somewhere in the background. He shut off the water and dried himself as quickly as possible. His clothes were still near the sink, and he didn't much care for the thought of exiting the shower with nothing but a towel for modesty.

“HEY!” he shouted, momentarily silencing the arguing pair. “Can you _both_ get out so I can get dressed? I'm not putting on a show.”

“That's a shame,” Ginny immediately rejoined.

“What's the idea letting Ginny in here?” Ron demanded.

Harry had no intention of explaining the situation fully. “She sort of let herself in.”

Ginny sounded unapologetic. “I didn't hear you complaining.”

“Ginny! Merlin, do I even want to know… No, fucking hell, I really don't!” Ron exclaimed.

Then Scott shouldered his way in, causing Hermione to let out an undignified squawk as he pushed her aside. “Okay, loud fucks and fuckettes: reality check. I do have neighbours! So Hermione, good-bye, and Ron, get out of my bathroom. Harry, get dressed. Ginny — staying or going?”

“Staying,” Ginny said smugly.

“Going!” Harry immediately countered. “Everyone is going, go!”

As soon as the door shut behind them, Harry darted out of the stall and locked it. He wasn't leaving any chances open for a repeat performance, even if the first half had been exciting, to say the least. Ginny might have been a welcome intrusion, but nobody else was. He dressed himself quickly and tried not to think about it. Of all the reasons to leave Ginny behind, the inherent, tempting distraction of her presence hadn't occurred to him. He had to focus.

And that meant putting together some sort of plan. He sat on the sofa whilst the others took their turns in the shower. The muted rush of the water, the murmuring of conversation and the hum of the cars in the street all faded, relegated into the same mixed swell of noise that settled somewhere at the back of Harry's head as he thought about the past and how it might inform the future. He didn't know enough to finish, but he thought he knew enough to start.

The sofa shook and Harry tilted to his right when Ron flopped down next to him. “You look lost,” he commented.

“Aren't we all, now?” Harry said philosophically.

Ron looked at him askance. “Are you trying to be deep or something?”

Harry sighed. “Or something. Hey, remember that life-sized chess game you played first year?”

“I remember most of it. Up until I got bashed in the head; that part's a bit fuzzy, for some reason. I swear I've got a dent there now.” Ron ran one hand over his temple. “Don't tell Hermione about that. She probably doesn't go for blokes with lumpy skulls.”

“Yeah, it's true. Good skull symmetry is a must,” Harry agreed. “But, what I want to know is, how did you do it? How do you… I don't know, look that far ahead?”

“I don't know _exactly_ what's going to happen. The big thing is to look at the board and know all the possible moves you can make, and then you need to know your opponent, at least a little. So you can guess how he'll react. You can't plot everything out to the very end, just have a general plan of movement and be able to change it if you have to,” Ron tried to explain. “The giant chess board wasn't all that smart, really. If I'd done a little better I wouldn't have got dented.”

“You were brilliant,” Harry assured him. “Hermione and I would have been right fucked without you there.”

Ron shrugged modestly. “Maybe. Why'd you bring that up?”

“Because I'm trying to do the same thing now, and I don't know if I can,” Harry admitted.

“I don't think I'll be much help, mate. I mean, I'll be with you, whatever happens, but… Chess has _rules_.”

“I suppose. I just thought you've kicked my arse around a chess board so much that you'd probably be better at planning than me. You're unbeatable.”

“Hermione is better than both of us combined, she'll see us through,” Ron said confidently. “And as much as I'd like to just take the title, I'm not 'unbeatable'. I've lost plenty of times to Dad. Bill's beaten me too. You know, Scott's beaten me at least once!”

“Of course even he'd be better than me,” Harry grumbled.

“You just lose track of things. You always do fine to start with,” Ron said encouragingly. “Scott does the same thing, but he's weird about it. He only uses, like, a third of his pieces much at all, but he uses them really well. I usually just sacrifice a few of mine because I can't pin him down, then after awhile he's too outnumbered to do much. It's like he expects the rest of his pieces to take care of themselves.”

Harry grinned at that. “Maybe he does. They can talk, after all. Does he get angry when they don't do anything on their own?”

“He used to. One night, I thought Hermione was going to put a Silencing Charm on him, he was swearing so much. He'd borrowed one of my sets and they weren't listening to him. Or, they didn't right up until he threw one of the pawns down the stairs.” Ron made a chucking motion. “They listened pretty sodding well after that!”

“Where the bloody hell was I during all this?” Harry wondered as he laughed.

“Not witnessing a great moment in chess history, obviously.”

“What are we laughing about?” Hermione asked. She had just left the bathroom and her hair was curly and damp as she settled onto the sofa next to Ron.

“I was telling Harry about that time I was playing chess with Scott and he worked himself into a strop,” Ron said.

“Which time?”

“Quit talking about me!” Scott yelled from his bedroom.

“Fine, we have more important things to discuss,” Hermione said.

“No, you don't! Keep talking about me, but only say nice things!”

“Impossible!” Hermione called back. “All right… We managed to escape, that's good. Now we need a starting point for our hunt. Harry, I have the locket in my handbag. When do you want to examine it?”

“I don't. Not until we have some sure way to destroy it,” Harry said. “I think Scott might be able to help with that. Scott!”

“Yeah?” Scott walked out of his bedroom, wearing a shirt that was at least two sizes too big for him.

“Nice look,” Ron commented. “The Death Eaters will never notice a blond midget following us around.”

“You're like, not even that much taller, so can it, dude. What is it, Harry?”

Harry leaned forward. “We don't have any way to kill the Horcruxes. So I was wondering if you still had any of that Blue explosive?”

Scott grimaced in a discouraging way. “I've been thinking about that, too. I'm pretty much ninety-nine percent sure it would destroy the object itself. Blue converts matter to energy, so the only issue is density versus quantity. And minimum safe distance. That being said, I'm shaky on how the magic would factor in.”

“How so?” Hermione asked. “Without an object to tether it, the fragment of the soul should… Oh. I think I see the problem.”

“What?” Harry said impatiently.

“Once ignited, Blue only interacts with matter. If destroying a Horcrux physically is all that we need, then it should do the trick,” Scott said. “No more locket, no more soul. But if there's something else going on, some kind of magical reaction that's necessary… Well, if I Blue bomb that thing there's no guarantee Riddle's soul sliver won't go floating back to him.”

Harry shook his head. “But when I destroyed the diary, I just stabbed it.”

“With a Basilisk fang,” Hermione reminded him. “Basilisk venom is a very powerful magical poison. According to what I've read, the soul cannot exist without its vessel. But that information presupposes a method of destruction which is magical, as that's the only thing a strongly enchanted Horcrux would be susceptible to. You can't just smash one, even if it weren't well protected.”

“Then hitting the locket with Blue ultimately wouldn't be much different than dropping a pound of PE4 on it. That might not suffice. It burns me to even think it, but Muggle tech may fail us in this case.” Scott did not look happy to be saying that.

“Actually, if the Horcruxes were properly made then Muggle explosives would have no effect; they're supposed to be impervious to everything but the most powerful forms of magical destruction. That's what's worrying about the Blue, we can't know what the effect would be,” Hermione explained.

“The shape tends to manifest in specific forms with specific rules,” Scott mused. “Breaking those rules often isn't the shortcut you'd think. Blue doesn't play nice with local shape manifestations; I'd be hesitant to use it on a Horcrux. I don't know what you consider the 'soul' to be around here, but it's arguably an energy form. Blue cuts it loose, maybe sends it back to start…”

Hermione pursed her lips thoughtfully. “As I said, the soul is supposed to die with the vessel, but the magic of the vessel must be utterly destroyed. Although, one wonders how the tether works, then. When the owner dies, how does the fragment of the soul become semi-corporeal and sustain them if it can't leave the Horcrux?”

“I get the feeling the people who make these things don't really know what they're doing,” Scott said.

“I've had the same thought,” Hermione admitted. “It's magic that should have been left unexplored. So, considering your explosive is an unnatural compound introduced from an entirely different universe, we simply can't know what the result might be.”

Scott nodded. “This probably isn't a good time to experiment.”

“Does it matter if You-Know-Who gets bits of his soul back?” Ron wondered. “I mean, as long as they're all in him, he can be killed again, right?”

“We have to assume he'd notice,” Hermione said regretfully. “Otherwise that might have been an ideal outcome.”

“It was building the Horcruxes that made him fuck ugly in the first place. Sorry,” Harry said quickly to Hermione when she glared at him in response to his profanity. “If he starts getting his soul back he'll probably change again. And he'd almost have to feel _something…”_

“He'd know what we were doing, and then there'd be nothing stopping him from collecting the other Horcruxes or making new ones.” Hermione shook her head. “We can't allow that. The process is supposed to be draining, so I doubt he'd do it on a whim, but if he makes even one more that we don't know about…”

“Then he'll be your kids' problem after we ice him,” Scott noted.

“I'd rather just end this now, if I can,” Harry said firmly.

“I'm just saying, we got options.”

“That is not an option! I'm not having you make an encore appearance in twenty years and lead my kids around through the same bloody nightmare!”

“Twenty years? What, are you going to have kids _tomorrow?_ In twenty years, you should still be able to get off the couch and cast a spell or two.”

“Not an option,” Harry repeated.

“There's something else we need to consider,” Hermione said. “Harry's connection to Voldemort has been a problem in the past, and if he—”

Scott held up a hand, interrupting her. “What did you just do?” he asked sharply.

“What?” Hermione's face revealed nothing but confusion. “I didn't do anything…”

“Yes, you did. There was a magic thread you sent out, just now.”

“Scott, I didn't—”

“Yes, you _did!_ ” Scott insisted. “You created a linked spell, like, five seconds ago.”

Hermione paled. “Linked to what?”

“Hell if I know. You were talking about Riddle and then, boom — connection. Very brief, I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't so tied to the shape right now.”

Harry didn't know what Scott was talking about, but Hermione looked concerned enough to put him on edge.

“Can you tell me anything about the characteristics?” Hermione said intently.

“The technical details would be in terms you aren't familiar with. It was similar to the seeking spell Dumbledore put on me last year when you were looking for me. Not exactly the same. You weren't pinged, it came from you. Or if it didn't, then it was created so fast it seemed like it did. Something was… triggered? Does magic even work like that?”

Hermione nodded shortly. “Rarely. Since it's already over and done with, I'm going to test a theory. Tell me if anything happens, all right?”

“I'm ready.”

“Voldemort,” Hermione enunciated clearly.

Scott squinted towards the window. “That did it. Whatever 'it' is.”

Hermione rapidly rose to her feet, her expression grim. “Everyone grab your things. I'll get Ginny out of the shower. Hurry!”

Ron gaped at her. “Hermione, what the bloody hell are you—”

“I don't have time to explain but we _have_ to leave as soon as possible, I promise it's urgent! _Go!”_ she yelled when they just looked at her dumbly.

Harry glanced over at Ron to see an identical expression of befuddlement. Scott, in contrast, had rushed back into his room the moment Hermione had said they were leaving. Either he understood the emergency, or he just trusted Hermione enough to believe there was one. Harry fell into the second category, and acted accordingly.

Most of their personal belongings remained in Hermione's handbag, so there wasn't much for Harry and Ron to gather. Instead, they busied themselves by keeping an eye on the door and peeking nervously out of the window. Harry didn't know exactly what they were watching for, but it was presumably Death Eater related. Just about everything was, more or less.

“Harry,” Ron said quietly from where he stood by the door.

“Yeah?”

“Where are we going to go?”

That was a very good question, and Harry didn't have an answer. “I haven't the foggiest. We were supposed to figure that out here.”

“Maybe Grimmauld Place?” Ron suggest hesitantly.

“Bollocks to that,” Harry immediately replied.

“Look, I know you don't want to go back there, because of what happened to…”

Harry glared at him, resenting the inference. “It doesn't matter whether I want to or not! Snape can get in, remember? He has the keys, just like us!”

Ron grimaced. “I'd forgotten about that. I guess since Dumbledore snuffed it we're all Secret Keepers now.”

“Yeah. Damn place is probably Death Eater headquarters by this point.” Harry had never liked Grimmauld Place, and that had only become more true with the painful memories now linked to it. Still, he hated the idea of Voldemort's followers (particularly Snape) making themselves comfortable in Sirius' home.

“What is this place you're discussing?”

The unfamiliar voice made Harry spin around, wand at the ready. His shoulders slumped and he relaxed when he saw it was just Scott, fully grown once more. The Kharadjai really needed to give them some kind of warning.

“Grimmauld Place,” Harry said. “Sirius' family house. I think I've mentioned it before. We've stayed there.”

“Is that where we're going?”

“No. Snape can get in, too. The building is under a charm that makes it invisible to anyone who doesn't know about it already. Dumbledore had the key, essentially, but…”

“Now nobody does,” Scott surmised.

“No, now we all do.”

“Something to keep in mind. If it's occupied, we could jump in there and cause some damage.

“Or _get_ damaged,” Harry added. “Let's not go looking for trouble, we've got loads as it is.”

“Don't discard an asset just because it's in enemy hands. A house like what you're describing is useful.”

 _“Was_ useful,” Harry said stubbornly.

“If it was made unassailable once, it can be made that way again,” Scott argued.

“Will the two of you shut it? I'm trying to think,” Ron interrupted them.

“Well, maybe we should all stick to our strengths,” Harry said snidely, and then immediately regretted it. He was lashing out, and Ron didn't deserve it. He sighed. “Sorry, mate. What were you saying?”

“From what just happened, it looks like You-Know-Who put some sort of curse on his name, right? That's why we have to leave; Hermione said his name and now they can find us,” Ron supposed.

Harry had been too busy fighting off memories of Sirius and arguing with Scott to really think about it. Now that Ron had laid it all out, his theory made frightening sense. “Damn,” Harry breathed. “I didn't know that was even possible.”

“On his assumed name. I've referred to Riddle multiple times without effect,” Scott pointed out.

“Then we all need to do the same, from now on. We can't slip up on this again,” Harry said seriously.

“They haven't smashed down the door, yet. So that's a plus,” Ron said.

Scott pushed down the window blinds and peeked through. “That's a fair point, Ron. What's keeping them?” He let the shades snap shut with a decisive motion. “They won't recognise me. I'm going to go out the back and do a lap around the building. Help the girls get all our junk together and lock the door behind me.”

Harry shook his head emphatically. “No, we should stick together!”

“Don't be an idiot on this one, Harry,” Scott said in a maddeningly level tone. “They won't know it's me and even if they do, I'm expendable. If I get made, I'll start shooting. You'll hear that real quick.”

Before Harry could protest any further, Scott unlocked the door and slipped out, closing it quietly behind him.

“He's gone completely mental,” Harry seethed. He darted over the window, keeping watch.

“What do you mean, 'gone'?” Ron said, doing the same. “You act like this is out of character for the git.”

Hermione came sweeping back into the living room with Ginny in tow and her handbag slung over her shoulder. “All right, I think I have everything, but there's not much time to check. Let's pick a destination, it doesn't matter where so much as it isn't here. I think — hang on, where's Scott?”

“Outside,” Harry said.

 _“What?”_ she gasped

“Are we not leaving, then? Hermione hasn't told me what's bloody happening,” Ginny said irritably.

Ron was still next to Harry, straining his eyes in an attempt to catch sight of Scott. “He thought he'd just pop out and look around.”

Hermione was pale. However, she seemed to calm after a few tense seconds of consideration. “…I see. Well, they haven't come in yet so we'll have to assume they don't know where to find us, precisely. I'm sorry for not explaining right away, but they found us because—”

“You-Know-Who has cursed his name, right?” Ron said. “How many times have I told you not to say that bloody name?”

Hermione blinked. “How did you…?”

“I thought about it a bit. I'm not _completely_ daft, Hermione,” Ron said wryly.

Her cheeks coloured. “Of course you aren't. I didn't mean it like that.”

“Most of us aren't completely daft, save one, who thought it would be brilliant to take a stroll out with the Death Eaters no doubt surrounding us as we speak,” Harry muttered.

“Very positive, Harry, good job keeping our spirits up,” Ginny mocked him.

Harry kept his mouth closed after that, but he continued to glare out the window, regardless.

Several minutes passed before there came a rattling from the lock, and the front door reopened. Scott walked through to be greeted by the business ends of everyone's wands.

“At least you're paying attention,” he commented. He shut the door behind himself and relocked it. “I just did a walk around the building, pretending like I was in the middle of a phone call. It's a good cover, especially when the people who might otherwise notice you have no idea what an actual phone conversation looks like.”

“So are there Death Eaters out there or not?” Harry demanded.

“At least two.” Scott pointed a finger in the direction of Lila's room. “On that street, standing around. They're dressed like workmen and not too badly, actually. One of them has his wand just jammed through his tool belt, though, didn't even try to hide it. Sloppy.”

Some of the tension went out of Harry's shoulders. “So they weren't actually trying to get in here.”

“Oh, no, not at all. They're obviously lost.”

Hermione had seated herself on the sofa, her face etched with intense thought. “That makes a great deal of sense, actually, as they've used this new sort of tracing spell in combination with Apparition, which requires very specific knowledge of a place. If they can only Apparate to the nearest known location — and since none of us have activated the spell again — then they don't have anything else to go on. It could have been anyone, or someone who has already left…”

“It's not very good, then, is it? They'll have to do a better job of finding us than that,” Ginny said with a hint of scorn.

“I don't think it's intended for us… Or, not us alone,” Hermione mused. “No one who follows Riddle dares to say his name, and the same goes for those who fear him. He's using this spell to find the opposition before they consolidate.”

“It would've worked well enough if we'd been somewhere else,” Ron said.

Harry nodded. “We got lucky. If Scott hadn't caught that, they wouldn't have found us this time and then we'd have said it again where they could catch us easy.”

“Or I might have kept saying it…” Hermione said sheepishly. “You know what I'm like when I'm making a point.”

Scott spread his hands. “Lesson learned. And almost painlessly, the best way.”

“So we _don't_ have to leave?” Ginny questioned.

“It's still less safe here,” Harry told her. “I guess we don't have to run, but I don't want us to stay here longer than we have to.”

“If we could find somewhere with more than one loo, that would be brilliant,” Ginny said, clearly only partially joking.

“I haven't thought of anything,” Harry admitted. “Hermione? Ron?”

“I have loads of relatives outside of The Burrow, but…” Ron hesitated.

“It would be too dangerous for them,” Harry finished.

“Yeah.”

Hermione shook her head. “My house is empty, but I can't be certain they don't know where it is. Scott, did you ever see any Death Eaters near my home?”

Scott nodded. “Twice. Even Riddle's goons can find an address.”

“Then that's that,” Hermione said, looking a bit shaken by the revelation.

“Well, we can't bloody well stay here,” Harry bit out in frustration. They were talking in circles and no one seemed to have a viable solution, least of all him, the supposed leader. They had barely started their insane quest and already he felt hemmed in.

“All right… Let's consider this more closely,” Hermione said slowly. “This discussion would be more focussed if we knew where we needed to be. We have to pick a Horcrux, and start there.”

Harry crossed his arms, thinking hard. “We'll have to settle for collecting them until we have a way to destroy them.”

“There's one over that way,” Scott said, waving a vague hand in a northward direction.

Everyone in the room ceased all motion and stared at him.

“…What?” Harry said slowly.

“A Horcrux. Well, I think it's a Horcrux. But it's that way.” Scott pointed north again.

“And how is it that you know this?” Hermione asked in a dangerous tone.

“It's pretty much the only clear thread I've gotten since this shebang kicked off. Do you have any idea how many tries it took me to change age?” When nobody said anything, he added, “At least five. And I didn't start counting right away.”

That mollified Hermione enough to head off the rebuke that had been sure to follow if Scott had been withholding vital information again. “So this is a new development,” she said more calmly.

“Yes.”

Ginny appeared extremely sceptical. “So… You just somehow know there's a Horcrux out that way somewhere? Just like that?”

“No, not 'just like that'. And I can't be one-hundred percent on it being a Horcrux. I caught the line for a second: it's an important thing, and it's way north of here. That's the best I can do.” Scott responded to Ginny with a slight acerbic undertone, but Harry was a bit relieved at the lack of outright antagonism.

“Your efforts are always appreciated, of course,” Hermione cut in diplomatically, perhaps sensing that any conversation between Scott and Ginny should be interrupted. “However, there's not much we can do about that right now, not without knowing more.”

“'North' is sort of a big place, and a bit cold and drafty, at that,” Ron said.

“That's all I got,” Scott said.

“Not like we have anything better,” Harry muttered, feeling like they were still getting nowhere. “Scott. Let me ask you something.”

“I'm just standing here.”

“If you were in my shoes, what would _you_ do? How do you find things?” Harry asked him.

Scott crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “This is hard mostly because the trail is so cold. We're looking for things that nobody is supposed to know about, some of which were created decades ago in total secret. First rule of any UO-related search is to check the shape, see if there's anything helpful. I said there's something up north, and that's all we’ve got out of that. Then you do all the usual things, methodical background work. What is this thing you're after, are there others like it, who would want it, is it worth anything, are there any known previous owners… That kind of crap.”

“Most of that isn't applicable,” Hermione pointed out.

“Exactly. My initial instinct at this point would be to start shaking people down, see what turns up. There's a reason most detective work involves knocking on doors. Unfortunately, those are the kinds of questions that absolutely can't get back to Riddle.”

“So you think we're effed, more or less,” Harry summarised.

Scott frowned at him. “You have a couple key advantages, Harry. First and foremost, Riddle thinks you're just hiding from him. He doesn't know that you know. Secondly, Dumbledore did a lot of research and handed you a bunch of clues. As I understand it, they're mostly based on circumstantial evidence and his estimation of Riddle's personality, but it's better than nothing. I think we can count on Dumbledore's profiling to be largely accurate. He knew his enemy, and he asked his questions when Riddle wasn't around to hear about them.”

“All the clues are just what the Horcruxes are probably made out of: the cup, the locket, the snake, something of Ravenclaw's,” Harry said. “We need _location_.”

“Get your ear to the ground,” Scott advised. “We've been out of touch with the rest of the world for about twenty-four hours. With the Ministry gone, just about anything could be happening out there.”

“That's a very good point,” Hermione agreed. “Let's not decide to go somewhere only to find it's entirely unsafe now.”

“We have to get out of here first, which…” Ron trailed off.

“…Brings us right back where we started,” Harry said unhappily. “It's great that this conversation is so interesting, since we're going to be having it for the rest of our lives.”

Ginny wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, momentarily derailing his vexation with her presence. “You're cute when you're snarky,” she told him, pressing a quick kiss to his chin.

“I… Thanks?” he stuttered.

“Eloquent,” Scott said. “Look, guys — just leaving isn't the problem. I can get us a hotel or a flat pretty much anywhere. I thought the concern was being located somewhere more magical. I've already had the talk with Harry about disappearing. If that's all we need, we can pile into the car and Riddle's boys won't even know where to start.”

“Neither will we,” Harry said. Scott was correct that the two of them already had a similar discussion, and Harry had been equally unconvinced of the viability of hiding in the Muggle world then, as well.

Hermione stood and approached Harry, her hands clasped together in a nervous fashion. “Harry… I know you're not very open to the idea and I do understand, but Grimmauld Place—”

“Why does everyone keep bringing that up?” Harry said, pulling away from Ginny's grasp. “Am I the only one who remembers that Snape probably has the bloody house full of Death Eaters?”

“But we don't know that for certain! There are more protections there now than ever before: I overheard Moody talking to Professor Lupin about spells the Order left to keep Snape out.”

“Like that's going to keep out Vol— _guh_ —” Harry leaned forward, gasping in pain after Scott jabbed two fingers, hard, just below his sternum.

“Sorry, but they might get a better fix if you say that name again,” Scott explained apologetically as Harry rubbed at his chest. “Consider it avoidance conditioning.”

Harry nodded silently, trying not to cough. It hurt like hell, but it was better than the alternative. He needed to be more careful.

Ginny was less accepting. “You could have just said something!” she snapped at Scott, moving between him and Harry protectively.

“It's all right,” Harry wheezed. “I wasn't thinking, he had to be quick about it.”

“Funny, isn't it? You spent all that time trying to get everyone to stop saying You-Know-Who, now we don't have a choice,” Ron mused.

“For future reference, Scott, it's acceptable to just put a hand over the mouth,” Hermione chided. “We tend to bruise more easily than you do. Harry, I think we need to at least check Grimmauld Place. If you're right, then we'll avoid it from then on, but I would really like to know if it's usable.”

“She's right, mate,” Ron said with apology in his tone. He was obviously in tune with Harry's strong feelings about Sirius' old home.

Harry sighed, feeling outnumbered. Objectively, he knew they had a point. Grimmauld Place was just too useful to abandon without checking on it. Emotionally, he never wanted to set foot there again. But, the mission came first.

“Fine,” he relented. “We'll see how it looks. But if there's a single Death Eater inside, we're never going back.”

***---~**~---***  

“How does this open?”

Hermione watched with trepidation as Harry reached forward and brought his wand close to the door. “Magically,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“Okay.” Scott raised his shotgun. “Give me three seconds before you follow. Keep your wands up and check corners. Staircase is forward, correct?”

“Straight down the hall,” Harry confirmed. “The stairs down to the kitchen are there, too. First door on the right is the dining hall.”

Scott shifted his stance, leaning forward slightly. His face went blank, only his eyes reflecting the intensity of his posture. “Open it.”

Harry opened the door.

Scott leapt forward, pressing his shoulder to the side of the door frame, crouching as he did so. He swung his weapon in both directions, covering the angles of the doorway. Hermione released the breath she had been holding when his finger remained still on the trigger. The entry hall must have been clear.

He moved inside, and, after a short pause, the rest of the group followed him.

The entry hall was dark and dirty, much filthier than the last time Hermione had passed through it. The dust was settled thickly on the floor, almost unnaturally so. A gust blew through the open doorway and stirred it, raising a cloud to sift through the air. Or, at least, that's what Hermione assumed. When the dust did not settle, and instead began to move and create an unmistakably human shape, she realised something else was happening.

When the face formed, Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and recoiled in horror. The dust wraith was the ghastly, wavering doppelgänger of Albus Dumbledore. Its arms outstretched menacingly as it approached them.

Scott levelled his shotgun at the apparition's head, unmoved. “If you're alive in some way, then stand down. I _will_ kill you. Again.”

The dust wraith exploded violently into a choking cloud, leaving all of them coughing and batting futilely at the thick air.

Scott appeared taken aback. “…I didn't expect that,” he said after a moment. “Did it die?”

“It was a terror spell, not properly alive,” Hermione told him. “It must have been looking for Snape.”

“Ah. It was more subtle than the other spells, I didn't catch it. Sorry about that.”

“What others?” Ron asked, shaking dust from his trousers.

“There was a spell that hit me when I stepped in, and something is pinging from those curtains.” Scott pointed at the portrait of Mrs Black, still blessedly concealed.

“Keep stopping that one,” Harry said quickly.

“We must be alone if those spells hadn't already gone off, right?” Ginny supposed. She started to cautiously approach the door to the dining hall.

“Most likely, but don't run off!” Hermione cautioned. “We need to check every room.”

“Behind me. Spread out, don't hug the walls. Harry, watch the back,” Scott said, raising his gun once again and moving forward down the darkened hall.

“Let's just split up, I think we can handle it,” Harry said, visibly impatient with Scott's methodical approach. “I'll take Ginny and check downstairs, you go with up with Ron and Hermione.”

Scott stopped his advance. “…No,” he said. “You take everyone down, I'll go up alone.”

“Take Hermione then,” Harry countered.

“Fine.” Scott gestured to Hermione. “Come on, let's go.”

Hermione felt like she was some sort of prize at auction after Harry and Scott's impromptu compromise, but she was willing enough to follow the plan. Harry, Ron and Ginny would be capable of handling a great deal between the three of them. Scott was highly lethal, but that lethality was of a largely Muggle variety. Pairing him with Hermione neatly compensated for his lack of wizarding knowledge. Hermione approved of the team structure; it was the most efficient variant.

She voiced the thought to Scott as they ascended the staircase. “These are the best teams, I think, if we're required to separate again. Obviously, it's best that we're all together, but I'm sure that won't always be possible.” She sent Scott a curious glance. “I must admit, I'm surprised you let three of your Primes go into danger without you.”

“This way nobody can slip out and tell anyone we've entered. And I didn't think there would be an overwhelming Death Eater force all jammed into a kitchen.” Scott poked the barrel of his shotgun into the cheek of one of the mounted house elf heads. He left it when that provoked no response. “Besides, there's no one here.”

Hermione looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“The house is linked to everyone in it. Probably because of the charm you guys had to let me in on. From in here, I can see the threads that I couldn't from the outside, all the people that are part of the magic. There's nobody here but us.” Scott opened the door to the drawing room and peered curiously inside.

Hermione was struck by a thought. “Can you see everyone attached to the Fidelius Charm, or just those that are present now?”

“I can see the threads for people who aren't currently here, but I have no way of knowing if that's all of them,” Scott said logically.

“But can you _identify_ those people?” she asked intently.

“A lot of them I don't know, or I'm not reading them right. There's 'distance' on some of them. There's not any actual spatial arrangement in the shape, of course, not in a conventional sense. See, travel and communication through the shape have the exact same latency regardless of the distance involved, so we know it's coterminous with the entirety of the physical universe, and—”

Hermione reluctantly broke in. “I _really_ don't want to interrupt you and please promise me you'll finish your explanation later, but this is very important: can you find the thread to Snape?”

Scott leaned against the grimy wall and his eyes became unfocussed. “…Yeah. He's fairly clear. So is Mrs Weasley, for some reason.” He blinked and shrugged at Hermione. “Coincidence. The shape can be like that, it doesn't imply a connection. The shape is… stirring. Complex. You find yourself, uh…”

Hermione placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to focus him before the shape took him off on another tangent. “If you can see Snape's thread, does that mean you can break it?”

“I'd need a little time to isolate it, but, yeah, probably. As long as you think it won't cascade and break the charm.”

That brought Hermione up short. Scott was prepared to defer to her on the matter, and the truth was she hadn't the slightest idea if the cascade he proposed was possible. “Well…”

“Table it?”

“Table it? But we're already discussing — oh, you must mean to — yes, for now,” Hermione agreed. “I may have to do some research.” That would give her more time to consider the matter, anyway, as she highly doubted that she would be able to find any pertinent information in her books. Scott's manipulation of raw magical energy had no precedent that she'd ever encountered.

Scott had already moved on and was pushing open the door to the room that had been Hermione and Ginny's during their last stay. “This one looks inhabited,” he said.

“It was mine. I suppose it is again, unless Ginny would prefer it. There are more rooms upstairs,” Hermione said. She watched as Scott walked a bit further down the hall and swiftly stepped through the door to the loo, gun at the ready. “I thought you said there was no one here but us?”

“No one connected to the charm,” Scott corrected. He exited the toilet and moved towards the staircase to the next landing, his eyes and weapon constantly seeking targets. “There could be other things — the dust man proved that. Besides, complacency is a good way to end up dead.”

“We've made enough noise that anything up there already knows we're here,” Hermione said, even as she lowered her voice.

“Let's find out,” Scott suggested, not pausing in his ascent.

Hermione didn't much care for the idea of running into another terror construct. The sight of Dumbledore rising from the dust had given her quite a fright. Which was the point, of course, but she didn't have to like it. She wasn't entirely certain why the spell had ended itself; perhaps it had only been meant for Snape.

“Can you detect any more spells around here?” she asked as they went up. She made a note of his stance: he held himself in a state of taut readiness, walking in rapid, smooth steps as he swung his shotgun in different directions, his eyes never ceasing in their assessment of every shadow, every doorway. It was clear he still believed a threat was possible.

“Vaguely,” Scott quietly replied. “There's a general ambient energy here, sort of like there was in Hogwarts. Probably a lot of spells tied to objects.”

“Be careful about interrupting anything,” Hermione warned. “Some tethered spells might be necessary for the wards.”

Scott pressed the barrel of his gun against the nearest door. “What's this?”

“Harry and Ron's room. The next door over is the loo, and the third is just storage — mostly dust, at this point,” Hermione said without concern, until she remembered what had happened with dust not long before.

Scott shoved the door open, revealing nothing but darkness. “Empty,” he said after a moment.

Hermione relaxed; then, something else occurred to her. “What about the portrait?”

“Well, there's a painting hanging on the wall. If you want a critique, I'll have to look at it in something other than the infrared spectrum,” Scott said with a hint of sarcasm.

That did make sense, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Hermione waved her wand and illuminated the room. The portrait was empty, just as she had hoped. With another wave, she put out the lights and swiftly shut the door.

“That's the portrait of Phineas Black; there's another one in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. As I understand it, all of the former Headmasters are bound to assist the current one, but with the Ministry having fallen, and us not knowing who's in charge at Hogwarts now, I think we should be prudent.”

“His loyalties are suspect?” Scott asked.

“He was a Slytherin and a pure-blood Black, first and foremost. I'll put an Imperturbable Charm on this door. The boys will have to stay in a different room.”

“It's better that he not know anyone is here, especially with the sterling qualities you listed.” Scott glanced at the stairs. “How many more floors?”

“Two, not counting the attic.”

The next floor was where a great deal of the Weasley family had stayed during fifth year. There were multiple bedrooms to check, but all of them proved empty. Hermione was glad at the lack of opposition, and also suspicious. Why hadn't Snape led anyone to Grimmauld Place? It was an unlikely oversight. Hermione had initially assumed that Snape may have entered alone, and the traps left for him had been effective to the point that he was unable to relate his knowledge of the hidden structure to any of his cohorts. However, there had been no clues of any activity, not even at the entrance.

The top floor had only two bedrooms, formerly belonging to Sirius and his brother. Both were empty. With those cleared, the only thing left was the small, crooked stairway leading up to the attic. Hermione had never been in the attic before, and wasn't looking forward to it. It was certain to be filthy.

The musty smells emanating from the small door at the top of the narrow stairs were not pleasant. The door itself had once been painted white, though most of the paint had since stripped away. Scott reached down and tested the doorknob.

“Not locked, looks like,” he said.

Hermione held her wand closer to Scott, illuminating the dark space as he tried the door in earnest. If any unseen dangers did lurk within (and had somehow managed to ignore the racket created by the two of them walking up the rickety steps), such foes would be alerted by the door. It dragged against the floor, having apparently sunk a bit since its earlier days. Hermione winced and covered her ears as Scott forced it open with a protracted series of kicks against its base.

The light of her wand revealed nothing but more dust and the lumpy, shrouded forms of furniture and boxes covered in sheets. That was more than enough to satisfy Hermione's curiosity, but Scott stepped inside for a closer inspection.

“No footprints,” Scott noted, examining the thick layer of dust on the floor. “Nobody's been up here for… I'd say at least ten, fifteen years.”

“Well, then I suppose we can go back,” Hermione said with relief, trying not to touch anything.

“Hold up your light first, I want to check this.” Scott was distracted from leaving by some sort of standing cabinet that had caught his attention.

Hermione didn't know what was so fascinating about a dusty old bit of décor, but she wasn't happy at having her exit forestalled. Her expression reflected this, but Scott was too busy trying to pry the cabinet open to see that. Since her glowering was wasted on his back, Hermione glanced around the attic with forced curiosity. There were probably any number of things she might find interesting beneath the drapes of heavy cloth, but, for the time being, she was much more concerned with how Ron, Harry and Ginny were faring downstairs.

“Junk, junk,” Scott was muttering to himself as he pawed through the dust-ridden contents. “Textbooks, boxes. Not what I was expecting. What _was_ I expecting? What the… Porn? Hmmm, these are pretty old. December seventy-seven of _Playboy_ , and American, too, which is weird… Interview with John Denver, who cares… Short story by Bernard Malamud, that could be good…”

Hermione could feel her face burning scarlet. “Put that back!”

“I'm not done with it. There's a do-it-yourself folding paper spaceship, which… is gone. I guess someone already used it. Damn. Still, those are some nice tits. Not a total loss.”

 _“Accio magazine!”_ Hermione hissed, ripping the periodical from Scott's grasp. She caught it and dropped it onto a nearby table, making sure it was face down. “And here I thought you were above such things!”

Scott gave her a look that indicated a poor opinion of her sanity. “What would make you think that?”

“You're an adult, now! Act your age!”

“You first, Miss 'I'm-Seventeen-Years-Old-But-Still-Blush-At-The-First-Hint-Of-Sexuality',” Scott smoothly riposted.

He had a point, damn him, but that wasn't going to stop her. “We aren't talking about me, we're talking about _your_ immaturity—”

Scott was already back to rummaging through the cabinet and ignoring her. “Look at this, it's a whole shoebox full of darts. Who would keep these?”

Hermione had a few suspicions that had been solidified by Scott's pornographic discovery. “These are most likely some of Sirius' things.”

“That would seem to fit, based on what little I know of him.” Scott reached into the very back, his face lighting up. “Hello…”

“What is it?”

“Oh. Oh my.” Scott was reverently unwrapping something that had been bundled in several blankets. “Purdey. I'm guessing nineteen-fifties. Twelve gauge bore, over under shotgun — look at that engraving. That's _nice.”_

Hermione took a half step backwards. “It's not loaded, I assume…”

“It doesn't _feel_ loaded…” Scott said, bouncing the weapon in his hands. When Hermione leaned away, he snapped it open and glanced into the chambers. “Nope, not loaded. And also not very clean. I'll have to teach Harry how to take care of that.”

“You aren't going to give that to him, are you?” Hermione said in alarm. Harry had no experience with firearms.

“Well, yes. It is his, isn't it?”

That gave her pause. Technically the gun was, in fact, Harry's. And it had once belonged to his godfather, which made the prospect of not telling him highly uncomfortable. Harry had spent the last six years of his life in the study of magic, and Hermione wasn't convinced that giving him a Muggle weapon was a good (or safe) idea, but… The weapon wasn't hers to withhold.

The parallels between that line of thought and the Ministry's recent actions were not lost on her. Really, the problem wasn't that she thought Scott didn't know what he was doing with firearms. She just had less faith in his ability to impart that knowledge. Regardless, Harry had a right to know.

“Just, _please_ be careful with it,” Hermione cautioned.

“Obviously.” Scott looked around the attic; nothing else seemed to grab his interest. “Might want to poke around up here later. Come on, let's see if they found anything.”

Scott took the stairs down two at a time, leaving Hermione breathing hard in her attempts to keep up. She hoped Harry and Ron weren't particularly attached to their old room. Well, just Ron. She doubted that Harry was particularly attached to anything about Grimmauld Place.

When they reached the ground floor, Hermione could see that the lights were on downstairs. She followed Scott, not bothering to rush in order to match his pace. The house was clear, and she didn't feel as apprehensive about being left alone close to the light as she did in the dark upper reaches.

Harry, Ron and Ginny were gathered around the large table in the kitchen. Harry held a letter in his hand, and his expression was troubled. Hermione felt a flash of fear — had something happened to the Weasleys? A quick glance at Ron relaxed her somewhat, as he didn't appear to be panicked. Still, his and Ginny's countenances were grim enough to set Hermione on edge.

Scott spread his arms in question when no one said anything right away. “What? Did you find something?”

“There wasn't anyone here, obviously,” Ron said. “But, an owl came in, and… Well, here.”

Ron took the scrap of paper from Harry and handed it to Scott. As Scott read, his expression turned dark. Wordlessly, he gave the paper to Hermione once he was finished.

The letter had been written in cramped, curly handwriting that rigidly adhered to straight lines across the faint blue of the paper. Only the occasionally shaky forms of the capitals and the blotted spots of what must have been tears indicated the anguished state of the writer.

It was from Kylie.

 

Mr Harry Potter, 

I am sorry to write you. I tried to write Scott but my owl could not find him. If you could give this letter to him I would be very grateful. Death Eaters came to my house and took my parents away. I do not know what to do and I need help please. I wrote my address on the back of this letter, if Scott can help. 

Please help, 

Kylie Elizabeth Timous 

 

Hermione lowered the letter, her face pale. Her heart went out to the young girl, who, with no one else to turn to, had sent a cry for help to one of the only friends she had. The war against Voldemort would have casualties, Hermione knew that and had always known that. But Kylie's desperate plea had hammered home the terror, the _plight_ , of the wizarding nation in a way that was immediate and personal.

Scott's expression had lapsed from its initial coldness into something more unreadable. He set Sirius' gun, once again wrapped in blankets, down on the table. “I'll take care of this. Get the Horcrux research going, I'm sure Hermione has a few ideas.”

Harry laughed, though there was no humour in it. “Yeah, right. Come on, let's find a way to get to Kylie's.”

“Floo is out. That's going to make things tricky,” Ron said.

Hermione flipped the letter over and looked at the address. “This is out in the country,” she said, examining it closely. “Holbeach in Lincolnshire.”

“Let's just take our brooms, there's a reason we packed them,” Ginny said, leaning back from the table. She looked eager at the prospect of taking action.

Hermione didn't quite share the same avidity, but she wasn't willing to leave Kylie in such a terrible situation. “That may be an option. We'll have to consult a map, first.”

Scott crossed his arms. “If you're all done discussing the trip that you won't be taking…” he said loudly. “…Then we can move on. You're Primes. You got more important things to do right now. I said I'll take care of it.”

“You're integrated with us — or did you forget?” Harry wondered sarcastically. “Going to run off and leave all your Primes to their own devices? To save a non-Prime's family? You're a true professional.”

That seemed to get under Scott's skin in a way Hermione hadn't often seen. “Yeah, sure, Harry. Maybe I _should_ ignore a direct quest for help from a terrified girl and sit around with my Primes, who, being of age and all, should probably be able to hide in an invisible house without me to hold their fucking hands!”

“Or maybe we'd rather not hide when someone needs our help!” Harry shot back, and although he'd said 'we', it was clear that he blamed himself for the situation. “Why don't _you_ stay here and think about Horcruxes?”

Hermione looked beseechingly to Ron and Ginny, hoping for some assistance in ending Scott and Harry's escalating argument before it grew completely out of hand. But the Weasleys had already distanced themselves from the two verbal combatants, and it was obvious that Hermione would have to intercede.

“Stop it, both of you!” she commanded in as piercing a tone as she could muster. “This isn't helping in the slightest! Harry, you know that Scott only wants to help Kylie; he's her friend! And Scott, even though Harry and the rest of us weren't as close to her as you, we still want to help! We know it's dangerous, and we accept that. And as you yourself pointed out earlier, we need to get out there.” She tried to think of a way to appeal to Scott's military sensibilities. “This is… This is our first mission. It's a test of us, of our effectiveness. How can we improve as a, um, fighting unit, if we don't fight?”

Scott narrowed his eyes at her. “When did you get to be so manipulative?”

“I had a brilliant example,” she shot back. “So are we going, or not?”

Scott sighed, rubbing at his face as his shoulders slouched. “…I guess we've all been expecting something like this,” he said after a moment. “Harry, let's look at the map. Ron, Ginny, help Hermione unload our stuff from her handbag. Looks like we're going to need it.”

“We'll leave most of it in here, for now,” Hermione said to Ron as he moved to assist her. “Careful with that black rucksack, it's Scott's and it may be explosive. Scott, here's the Muggle map.”

Scott took the map from her and unfolded it on the table. He and Harry leaned over it, tracing the North-East coastline. “Here's Holbeach,” Scott said. “Little over a hundred miles. That doable by broom?”

“Yeah. I'd say two and a half hours, at most,” Harry confirmed.

“Okay. Now, the first thing you want to look at when preparing a ground operation are major roadways. Their patterns define points of population and provide clear landmarks.”

Hermione busily sorted through her handbag, trying to remain occupied and not let her growing nervousness overwhelm her. It was one thing to talk about mounting a rescue mission, and something else entirely to do it. A similar outing in the fifth year had not gone well. At least this time, Harry wasn't acting on falsified visions and impulse.

Which didn't necessarily raise the chances of success, all things considered.


	8. Dear Kylie

**8**

**Dear Kylie**

**\---**

_“Of course, the [question] I get asked the most relates to that_  
 _one designation on the bottom of the [Field Performance Report]_  
 _brevium: neutral, influenced. The key word there is 'influenced',_  
 _and during the initial stages of [Observation and Reporting]_  
 _it tends to come up a lot. What is 'influenced'? How do_  
 _you define that on the ground? Even field agents still have_  
 _questions about it, even Primarius. How and where do we draw_  
 _that line?_  
  
_The simplest definition of 'influenced' falls along the lines of the_  
 _obvious, we're talking about mind control now, total loss of freewill._  
 _It's once we move into the less apparent that things start to become_  
 _murky. What about blackmail? What about conscription? Now_  
 _we're going to have difficulty. That kind of decision becomes too_  
 _detailed, too situational. Those people are inevitably going to be_  
 _lumped under 'hostile'. If they're shooting at you, it's kind of hard_  
 _to think of them as being anything else, right? Many of you have_  
 _been in that position._  
  
_But the most insidious definition, the one that raises the most_  
 _uncomfortable questions is, I think, the victims of misdirection._  
 _The victims of lies. Not everyone who hinders is aware that_  
 _they're doing it. People can be taken advantage of in truly_  
 _awful ways, and that's just the worst situation to find yourself_  
 _in.”_  


                        —Major Ezekiel Philipps, Praesaedius Training Corps  
                        Keynote speech at ICDC¹ DCCCXCVI

  1. Imperiarchy Communis Disciplina Congressus



\--- 

Kylie's parents had been taken from her. The thing was, if she hadn't received the note informing her of that fact, she probably wouldn't have known.

The manor was large, silent and empty, but it was always large, silent and empty. The pristine halls were as quiet and cold as a tomb, the neatly buffed floors and elegant archways lacking any sound save for the hushed flutter of the lamps. Kylie had spent her whole life avoiding those halls with their stone-tiled floors. She traversed the carpet where she could, and tiptoed where she couldn't. Sound could only bring attention to what an ungainly beast she was, as Mother said.

She knew that her parents were not at home and apparently were not coming back, but some habits couldn't be broken. She could no more speak out loud or run freely than she could when Mother and Father were there to note her every misstep and enumerate her failings. So she hid in her room and glanced furtively out the rain-slicked window, trying to ignore her frantic heartbeat and hold on to the faintest hope that help might come.

The note had been pinned to her door when she had opened it in the morning, ready to sneak across the hall to the loo as she did every day. She purposefully woke up early, since her father would descend the nearby staircase on his way to breakfast, and she couldn't look unkempt if he were to spot her. But, that day, instead of a scolding for tousled hair she had received a letter explaining that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had taken her parents, and that she need not look for them (as if she would know where to begin).

She was positive there were still Death Eaters about the garden. She had seen shapes moving near the front walk at night. She'd wanted to take a closer look, but had ended up cowering beneath her sheets instead, trying to summon up the bitter disappointment in herself she should have been feeling. What kind of Gryffindor was she?

The afraid kind, obviously. She had stuffed her house scarf in the bottom of her school bag, terrified that her parents would find it. She didn't have to lie about which house she had been Sorted into, she just had to hide — no one talked to her if they could help it. If she kept quiet (which she always did), then her parents would assume… Well, they would never assume the best, but they might not assume the worst.

A proper Timous belonged in Slytherin; her ancestry proved that well enough. And though the Timous family had been marginalised and ignored for the better part of a century, they were still from the same, pure-blooded stock. Kylie was supposed to have been making connections in Slytherin, reminding them that the House of Timous may have been forgotten, but was not gone. Instead, she made friends (real friends!) in Gryffindor.

If her parents found out, Kylie wasn't sure what would happen. She was already unworthy; she barely existed in the margins. She had a feeling that she couldn't be a Timous and be a Gryffindor. She knew which one she'd choose if she had to.

She dropped the quill she'd been using at her desk and drew her knees up, hugging them to her chest. She breathed hard, fighting down the panic that squeezed tight at the edges of her lungs. Such thoughts were dangerous and difficult. It had been hard enough just to write to Harry Potter and ask for help.

She knew he probably wouldn't come. And, even if he did, what could he do? Everyone was running from the Dark Lord, terrified and overpowered. She had been taught to take comfort in that, to know that she was on the winning team. But she didn't feel like she was. And if the Dark Lord was on her side, why had he taken her parents?

It was what she understood the least. Mother and Father had been ignored by the pure-blood elite just as she was, in turn, ignored by them. Nobody remembered the Timous family, nobody asked for their presence. Their fortune was modest by the standards of the upper class; they were not disgraced, but they were not important. Perhaps they were of some other use? Perhaps… a sacrifice?

Kylie shuddered again, planting her forehead against her knee. If He had needed a sacrifice, why not take her?

Was she so unworthy that she was useless even in death?

Not that she _wanted_ to be killed. Going to Hogwarts had been the greatest change her life had ever seen, an entire new world opened to her; and then the Headmaster had been murdered as her new home was attacked by the people she was supposed to consider allies. Even if she could go back, it wouldn't be the same. Maybe it didn't matter. Everyone had probably forgotten about her, by now.

She picked up the quill again, trying to summon the willpower to finish her letter to Trevor. Even if he didn't reply, at least she had tried. That would be a personal victory. Harry Potter and Scott had never responded, though, and it hurt. She shouldn't let it. She should be used to being ignored, and, with no real experience at making friends, how could she expect to be any good at it? Their kindness had probably been nothing but pity.

Even so, it was still the best thing in her life. She would always have those moments.

The parchment stared up at her, half blank and waiting for the words. She pressed the quill to it and tried to be honest. It didn't come easily. She had been taught to keep herself tightly bound.

In the last year, those knots had started to fray.

***---~**~---***  

The night was wet and dark. Raindrops fell from the sodden skies and ran down the tree trunks, hanging off the leaves and dripping onto rocks and mud. Harry shifted in the wet grass, trying to ignore the way it was soaking his trousers. Their impromptu mission was the first real strike of the war that he had found himself at the centre of. He needed to focus on the task at hand, not how bloody uncomfortable he was.

Besides, it seemed like the sort of thing he should become accustomed to. The enemy wouldn't wait on the weather. The rest of his piecemeal rescue party were all wearing similar expressions of discomfort, save for Scott; he was prone on his stomach, disregarding the mud puddle he was lying in.

 _No time like the present,_ Harry thought. Bracing himself, he shuffled forward on his knees, and then fell next to Scott. He instantly regretted his decision to emulate the Kharadjai and set an example for the rest — the shock of the wet and the cold on his stomach was unpleasant, to say the least. He tried not to think about what was soaking through his shirt, and motioned for Scott to pass him the binoculars.

Scott obliged, handing them over. “Turn the wheel on the top to focus,” he said softly. Harry had to strain to hear him over the downpour. “Look to the right of the house, past the fountain in the middle of the yard.”

Harry did so, looking to the right and peering through the lenses. “Damn,” he swore the second he focussed on the spot Scott had indicated. “That's not all of them, is it?”

“No. There's two more behind the split-trunk tree on the left side yard. You see the lit window on the second floor? To the right?”

“Yeah,” Harry confirmed. The window in question was just barely lit, but when magnified it was noticeably brighter than the others.

“I think Kylie is in there, I saw her hair for a second.”

“I know it seems paranoid—” Harry began.

“Very little at this stage seems paranoid,” Scott said.

“…But I think this is a trap.”

“Had to be this bloody obvious before you decided that?” Ron said derisively.

“Someone had to say it,” Harry muttered. He stared hard at the looming structure ahead, willing a solution to occur to him.

“I think we all have some doubts about this,” Hermione said, her nervousness displayed by the rapid tapping of her wand into her palm.

Harry turned to Scott. “Do you think her parents are here somewhere? I know she said they were taken, but it looks like they've got her hostage, too.”

“Possibly. Kylie could only tell us what she knew.”

“If it was her who wrote that letter,” Ginny suggested.

“I think it was, actually. Her handwriting was familiar,” Hermione said. “I helped her revise on several occasions.”

“Like I said, she could only tell us what she'd been told,” Scott reiterated.

Hermione's eyes widened. “Do you think… that her parents went _willingly?”_

Scott pointed at the house. “You tell me. Does this look like a ransom attempt? Or does this look like bait for a third party?”

After a few seconds, the shock in Hermione's face faded, replaced by a grim sadness. “It does make sense, yes. A house like this would suggest…”

“That Kylie takes tea with the Malfoys,” Ron said with disgust.

“Is this the same Kylie I know?” Ginny said with disbelief. “Barely says a word? Was Sorted into Gryffindor?”

“It's not likely that she personally has Death Eater sympathies,” Hermione agreed. “No, I think it's rather that she… Well, I do hate to say it, but she is the 'bait' tonight.”

“I'm prepared to check this under the assumption that not only is this a trap, but it was planned and implemented by Kylie's parents,” Scott stated.

“And I thought _I_ was being paranoid,” Harry said, grimacing.

“You think they would use Kylie like that?” Ginny sounded sickened by the thought.

Scott nodded, his face remaining the blank slate it had been for the entire conversation. “Yes.”

Harry rolled over onto his side, shivering a bit at the sensation of cold water streaking across the top of his head. It was a bad job all around, no doubt about it. It wasn't the first trap he'd ever walked in to, but that hardly recommended it. “They'll wait for us to go down the garden path, and then…”

“There have to be more,” Ginny guessed.

“If there are any, they'll be behind the house,” Scott told her. “Once we commit, they'll swing out from the sides. They'll have the high ground and we'll be stuck in the middle with limited cover.”

“Waiting isn't getting us anywhere,” Ron said gruffly. “C'mon, I'll go first.”

Hermione gripped his arm and pulled him back down into the brush. “You will not! Scott will go first!” As soon as the words left her mouth, she blushed in chagrin. “That is, if he… If his plan…”

“Involves taking one for the team?” Scott said dryly. “Not this time. Tell me something: does this look like the kind of force you would leave for the almighty Chosen One?”

Harry really, _really_ hated that appellation, but Scott did have a point. “If Riddle knew I was going to be here, he'd have everything he's got.”

“Which means they don't really know if you're going to show or not, so they have a few low-level robed turds standing around to pass it along if you do.”

“I'd love to get my hands on the Slytherin that told them about Kylie and us,” Ron growled.

“Later. The point is, these guys aren't so much a trap as they are an alarm.”

Harry considered that. From his vantage point there didn't appear to be many options. The Timous estate was situated right in the middle of farm country, surrounded on all sides by flat fields. The wards that kept Muggles out also thwarted the progress of rural planning; the manor was an island of trees, no doubt looking exactly the same as it had for centuries, if not longer. He wondered how many farmers had harvested their crops not twenty feet from the property, never having a clue they shared a border with wizards.

The result of all that empty space was a definite lack of alternative routes. While the manor gardens were ringed with trees, the areas around the house proper were barren save for a few low stone walls and the large decorative fountain. There was no way to cross to the door without being seen.

Stealth offered the best possible outcome. Especially as the only other thing Harry could think of was speed. If Scott opened fire, and everyone rushed the front, it was possible that they might rescue Kylie and get back beyond the edge of the wards before more opposition arrived. They would have to be very quick, though. The window of opportunity would be slim; perhaps too slim for that to work.

Harry looked at Ron. “I don't fancy our odds in a fight. How about we go in under the Cloak?”

“We aren't all going to fit under there,” Ginny pointed out.

Harry winced. “Er… I was just talking to Ron, actually…”

Ginny fixed him with a hard look. “Oh, is that right?”

“I suggest you rethink that plan, unless you have some way to get past the wards,” Hermione said in a frosty tone.

“The front walk should be fine, it's the door that could be a problem,” Harry said, trying not to sound defensive. He needed to sell everyone who wasn't Ron on the merits of his plan. “We'll slip under the Cloak and get in and out before anyone notices.”

“And what if you're seen?” Hermione questioned. “Never mind how you intend to get past the door…”

“We'll get Kylie to open it for us,” Harry asserted.

“How? Are you going to give her a ring?” Hermione said sarcastically.

Harry had to smile at that. His methods were Muggle, but not that advanced. “Close. All we need are a few rocks.”

Hermione didn't immediately respond. Her expression remained stiff, which, when combined with her silence, indicated that she knew the plan was workable, but was opposed to it by default.

Ginny had not arrived at the same conclusion. “What a crock of shit! I am not staying here while you march through the Death Eaters and hope for the best!”

“There is an issue,” Scott spoke up. He had been distant from the conversation, still staring through the binoculars.

“More than one,” Ginny agreed, which was probably some sort of landmark event.

“Ron is too tall to get under that Cloak. You are, too, Harry, but it would just be the bottom of your shoes if you stand up straight. Remember trying to stay quiet with both of us tripping over each other under that thing?” Scott reminded.

Harry did remember, now that it had been mentioned. It had been a right pain in the arse to spy on Malfoy whilst trying to keep their feet from showing. And that had been in the previous year; Harry didn't think he'd grown all that much, but Ron had always been taller.

“Then I'll go,” Hermione volunteered.

“Why don't I just go alone?” Harry wondered out loud. He was getting very tired of debating everything with his uncooperative friends. His plans weren't _that_ bad.

Scott gave his unsolicited opinion. “Try not to do that, a two-person team is more effective. And I want Hermione here. I might need her magic brain.”

“Then it's up to me,” Ginny said smugly.

Harry didn't want her anywhere near the line of fire to begin with, never mind the effing front door. If only he could think of some way to express that without getting slapped. “Um, Gin…”

Even that garnered him an immediate glare. “Don't, Harry. I'm going with you.”

Hermione nodded reluctantly. “That's our best course, I think. If anything goes wrong, just run back to us and we'll cover you.”

Harry glanced back the way they had come, mentally marking the spot where the trees ended. Scott had been able to get them past the edge of the property, but, according to him, the wards over the entirety of the grounds were old and very powerful. They would have to get back into the fields before they could Disapparate.

It was not a welcome prospect. Harry tried one last time to find another alternative. “Scott, do you think we could pick off the side guards without the rest noticing?”

“Can you cast a spell without yelling it?”

A fair rebuttal. Harry could cast some spells non-verbally, but certainly not his full arsenal. “…Maybe.”

“Not good enough. If Riddle shows up, there's no desirable outcomes.”

Which could result from more than just the sound of spells being cast. Studying the manor once more, Harry remembered that there could be an indeterminate number of Death Eaters on the other side of it. They might be able to see the forward sentries — or perhaps all of the Death Eaters were in regular contact. Either way, removing even one of them could be disastrous.

“Nothing for it,” Harry sighed. “We can't risk an alert until we have Kylie. We have to use the Cloak.”

“Agreed,” Scott said.

“Yes,” Hermione also concurred.

“Then this is how we'll do it,” Harry said, his mind working rapidly. “Ginny and I will get down to the door as quick as we can. Hermione, can you hand me some of that gravel by your foot? It's about the right size for this. We just have to get Kylie to look out the window long enough for me to wave to her. I think she'll recognise me.”

“She'll know me, I saw her in the dormitory all the time,” Ginny added.

“Right. As soon as she gets the front door open, we get her under the Cloak and leave. I don't really care if we have to run or whatever at that point, we just have to be gone. Ron, you and Hermione will — hey!” Harry broke off as Hermione rapped him on the top of the head with her wand. “What are you…” He trailed off as the familiar sensation of the Disillusionment Charm trickled over him.

“It's not as perfect as the Cloak, of course, but it should help if you have to run…” Hermione explained as she did the same to Ginny.

“Now that's damn useful,” Scott commented with a look of far greater interest than he usually wore when magic was happening.

Harry glanced down at himself. In the darkness of the woods, he could barely distinguish his own form. The rain dripping through the trees provided the clearest indications of his outline. “I'm sure you can see me just fine,” he said to Scott.

“We're not up against other Kharadjai. And considering how infallible your Cloak has been, I'm going to guess there isn't any spell to view the infrared spectrum.”

“I've never come across such a spell,” Hermione confirmed.

“Good. Although, if the Death Eaters have any cloaks of their own, maybe it's something you could look into?” Harry suggested as he pulled his own Cloak out of Hermione's handbag.

Hermione was clearly intrigued by the challenge. “I suppose I might, at that…”

“Come on,” Harry said, motioning to Ginny. “Let's do this.”

She slid under the Cloak with him, her body heat soaking through his damp clothes. “This is really strange… I'm not sure where I am,” she said, shifting a bit awkwardly.

“We'll go slow at first, until we get used to it.” Harry turned to the others. “Is everyone ready?”

“One last thing,” Scott said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Harry stared at him. “What?”

“This rescue. It's a big risk. You sure about it?”

“As opposed to what?” Harry asked, becoming angry. “Leaving Kylie all by herself, surrounded by Death Eaters that would probably kill her for being a blood-traitor Gryffindor? What kind of question is that?”

“Well, considering her parents set all this up, she might actually be safer here. I mean, we're rescuing her from a trap set for _us_.”

Harry could scarcely believe what he was hearing. “Right, sure, so let's just ignore her, let the Death Eaters do whatever they want with her, and let her think we didn't even care enough to check if she was all right! I can't believe this shite, what are you thinking?! This was your idea in the first place, and now you're—” Harry's mouth snapped shut as he realised exactly what was happening. “Oh, you… You fucking sod. Of all the times to — _stop testing me!”_

“Really, Scott? You decided to take the piss _now?_ ” Ron said.

Ginny made a sound that was equally disbelieving, but Hermione seemed more curious than anything. “Is this sort of scenario part of Kharadjai training?” she wondered.

Harry blew out a furious breath, not particularly caring if that were the case. “So what was this all about, then? Just poking me to see what I'd do?”

“Offering an alternative — logistically desirable, morally bankrupt. The kind of choice that sometimes has to be made… but not this time,” Scott said, unperturbed by Harry's hostility.

“We'll talk about this later,” Harry said balefully.

“Yeah.” Scott had retrieved his rifle and was looking through the scope. “If you hear me fire, fall back immediately. Ron, I have a job for you and your Keeper skills. Grab those grenades.”

“Um…” Ron looked at them apprehensively.

“They're smoke grenades, relax. If we go loud, I want you to toss three of them, left, right and centre. Get them as far out as you can.  Harry, if you have to retreat, just make the smoke and you'll be all right. Between that and the Cloak, they won't see shit.”

“Do be careful,” Hermione whispered as they shuffled forward under the Cloak.

Harry pushed his way through the brush for a few feet, fighting the tangles of weeds and low-hanging branches. It was lucky that the darkness and rain would conceal their movements, since the Cloak did nothing to hide all the foliage being pushed aside. Once they were out of the overgrowth, it was less likely anyone would notice the grass flattening beneath their feet.

Ginny didn't have the experience with the Cloak that the others did. Her movements were slow and halting as she tried to match stride with Harry, and it didn't help that he was slightly bent over into her space. The gradual hill that marked the end of the woods was a jumble of mud and soaked grass. Harry put an arm around Ginny's waist and held her tightly, bracing both of them as they slid down the slope.

Making matters more difficult was the pervading darkness. The dark clouds overhead prevented even a sliver of moonlight from shining through, shrouding the entire property in deep, impenetrable shadows. Harry hoped that the grounds were well-kept enough to be free from detritus. A rabbit hole or a misplaced rock could send them sprawling.

Ginny wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. With the shelter of the trees behind them, what would have been a pleasant summer's night breeze became cold with the rain. “This thing still works when wet, right?” she whispered through chattering teeth.

“It'll be fine,” Harry assured her. “Let's go right around the fountain.”

The stone slabs of the garden path were easier to navigate, though not without their own hazards. They swerved around the gathered puddles for fear of splashing. The Cloak was becoming uncomfortably heavy in the rain, clinging to Harry's face and arms. The dim light in the window they had presumed to be Kylie's became clearer, a beacon through a downpour that was turning into something near torrential. At the top of the hill, Harry had been able to see the house fairly well. Now past the fountain, he couldn't even see the tree line he had come from.

“At least they'll never hear us!” Ginny said positively, all but pressing her lips to Harry's ear in order to be intelligible.

Harry nodded shortly in reply, not wanting to encourage conversation despite the decreased danger of detection. Ginny was probably right, but the problem was that Kylie might not hear them, either. If the rain fell any heavier, they would have hardly needed the Cloak, never mind Scott's smoke grenades. The wind was picking up as well, cutting through their soggy covering and making Harry fervently wish he had dressed more warmly. Ginny obviously felt the same — she had pressed back into him, seeking warmth.

The front of the manor was a solid edifice of stone and ivy, fronted with stylised columns and even a couple weather-worn statues. Harry could barely make out the details; Kylie's window had become almost the only point of visual reference in the pouring rain. He placed one hand against the cold wall and followed it towards the dim glow.

With the window directly above them, it was time for the hard part. Harry looked to his left and right, trying to determine if any Death Eaters could see the section of the house where he and Ginny stood. The columns at the outside corners would shield them from anyone not actually in the front garden.

“See anyone?” he whispered to Ginny.

“How could I? I can barely see the bloody house right in front of me,” she grumbled. “Take this spell off so she can see me.”

“Just stay close to the wall. I think you'll have to light your wand.” Harry dispelled the Disillusionment Charm from Ginny, and then did the same for himself. If they were discovered, he didn't want her to draw all the attention.

He extracted several rocks from one of his pockets and looked upward. The light from Kylie's window barely penetrated the storm, even when he was so close to it. No doubt Ron and Hermione could no longer see it at all from the hill. Hopefully, Scott would be able to see well enough, though Harry wasn't sure if the infrared spectrum was impeded by rain.

The first pebble he threw yielded no results. He repeated the action, not really knowing if he was hitting the window or not. He couldn't hear anything but the rain, and lost track of the pebbles almost as soon as they left his hand.

Then, a shadow flitted behind the streaked glass. Ginny straightened beneath the Cloak and began pushing the sodden material off her. Her long red locks were plastered to her neck and back; with the Cloak collecting so much water, she looked as if she had gone for a swim. “I think she heard that one! _Lumos!_ ”

Ginny sheltered the bright gleam of her wand with her body whilst Harry kept tossing rocks. Kylie would have to open the window to see them, and that meant she needed more incentive than a noise she might have imagined. With a little luck, curiosity might make her brave enough to investigate.

The light shifted, became more obscured. Harry threw his next pebble a bit harder than the others. It shot upwards into the dark, clinking off the glass. He paused anxiously. Kylie had to have heard that one, if that was her shadow blotting out the light. And if it wasn't her, then Harry was about to have quite a problem. He readied himself to run.

The window moved slightly; then, with a creak that was just audible over the storm, it was pushed open. Seconds later, Kylie's head peeked tentatively over the edge, her eyes huge with trepidation.

Ginny jumped up and waved at her frantically. Kylie's already wide gaze somehow widened even further, and the portion of her head which could be seen shook with what must have been a startled gasp.

“Kylie!” Ginny said in a loud whisper. “It's me, Ginny! Open the door!”

Kylie stared downwards, not moving.

Ginny grimaced. “The door!” she repeated, emphasising with gestures towards the front walk. _Open the door_ , she mouthed with exaggerated precision.

 _The door?_ Kylie silently repeated, peeking her head out further so her mouth was visible.

“Yes!” Ginny nodded emphatically. “Open the door for us!” She mimed turning a doorknob.

Kylie nodded in reply, and she slid back out of sight.

Harry pulled the Cloak back down over Ginny. “I think she understood,” he said, feeling good about their chances for the first time.

By the time they hurried over to the door, it was already partially opened. Kylie's slight form was sketched against the light from the entryway as she leaned out into the rain, as if she were a silhouette painting. Harry glanced towards the hill, but the rain had yet to slack.

He looked back just in time to see another shadow on the wall behind Kylie.

He surged forward, leaving Ginny momentarily exposed as he snatched Kylie from the doorstep and clamped a hand over her mouth; she tensed and loosed a muffled scream. He pulled her to himself and fell backwards onto Ginny, leaving all of them sprawled on the ground next to one of the decorative columns. There was frantic moment as he rearranged the Cloak, trying to cover them. He was sitting on the portion Ginny needed, and Kylie was still on the outside. Somehow, he managed to push himself upward, slide Kylie underneath the Cloak and allow Ginny to worm her way in to flop against his side.

Kylie struggled against his grip, still unaware in the dark of who held her. Harry almost lost his hold on her when Ginny fell against him; reaching blindly upward, he caught Kylie again and yanked her back against his chest. Her tiny chin smacked firmly into the deep bruise where Scott had jabbed him earlier. Harry fought back a yelp of pain, biting his cheek so hard he tasted blood.

“It's us, it's us, Kylie, stop! Stop moving!” Ginny hissed, catching Kylie's flailing hands with her own.

Kylie instantly calmed, going limp with relief. Either that or she had fainted, Harry couldn't tell in the dark. More concerning was the large shadow standing just inside the hallway on the other side of the door.

Harry wrapped a tense arm around Ginny's shoulders, hugging her to him both as a warning to keep quiet and as a precautionary measure. If they were discovered, he was in a good position to shield her. He barely breathed as a Death Eater stepped out into the rain, the drops plunking hollowly against the stiff cloth of his hood.

“No one here?” a voice asked from inside the house.

The man outside descended from the steps and lit his wand, waving it from left to right as he searched around the column. “No… Where's the little Timous bird, still up in her room?”

“Light's still on. Dolohov said we're not to go up there, though.”

“Fuckin' Dolohov,” the man grumbled, looking up through the rain with a posture of distaste. “I'm about sick of that cunt.”

“Orders is orders. You'll earn a _Cruciatus_ with that kind of talk,” the other Death Eater warned.

“Hmph. You think this door just blew open, then?” the first Death Eater said. He took another step forward. The tip of his boot was now resting on the edge of the Cloak.

Ginny shuddered slightly. She was stiff at Harry's side, every muscle tensed. Carefully, Harry slid his wand hand out from where it had been trapped beneath Kylie.

There was a rattling sound; the Death Eater inside the house was probably testing the latch. “It's pretty old.”

“Like everything else around here. God, I hate this bloody rain. My wife is going to give me hell if I catch a cold.”

“Then don't. Hurry up and look about and then get back in here, we have to report in a few minutes. You want them to think we ran off like Preston and Henry?”

“Remember what Lestrange said she'd do if she found them? Christ. All right, just give me a moment. If you come out here you'll get sick, and then your wife will give you hell, too.”

“My wife actually loves me, Grebbs.”

“Fuck off. I'll be right back.”

The next step Grebbs took was right onto Harry's leg.

Grebbs stumbled backwards, confused but not immediately alarmed. “What…?” He kicked out towards Harry.

Harry wasn't going to wait for the inevitable. “GO!” he shouted to Ginny. He caught Grebbs' foot just before it hit him and pulled, sending the Death Eater reeling sideways into the column.

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ” Ginny disarmed Grebbs, catching the man's wand and hurling it out into the dark towards the fountain. “Come on, Kylie, _run!_ ”

Harry desperately fought to get on his feet, hampered by the slick cobblestones. He tugged up on the edge of the Cloak and managed to keep it in place, but Grebbs' leg was still resting on top of him. He pushed furiously against it even as the Death Eater swung a fist at his invisible tormentor. Ginny threw herself against Grebbs' chest as Harry just barely dodged the punch. Her weight knocked Grebbs onto his back, freeing Harry.

Harry grabbed Ginny's shoulders and pulled her up and off Grebbs. For a moment, her wrist was caught in the Death Eater's grip; then there came an unexpected _SNAP_ that cut through the rain with startling clarity, and Grebbs' head lolled backwards. Ginny yanked her arm free.

Harry began to run, Ginny at his side. He looked to his left with the expectation that Kylie would be there, only to find that she was already ahead of them, having apparently taken Ginny's instructions to heart. Her legs were short, though; it didn't take Harry long to catch up to her.

“This way, Kylie, keep going. We just have to make it to the hill!” he said breathlessly, grasping the small girl's hand in his own and pulling her along.

She nodded, her breath emerging in pants that were more like sobs. Her eyes were full of terror and it was clear that she was pushing herself just to keep up, but she still ran gamely along with them. Harry felt a brief flash of something like pride; perhaps Kylie had been more of a fellow Gryffindor than he'd ever given her credit for.

 _CRACK, CRACK, CRACK._ Shots rang out from the hilltop, growing louder with every step. Harry couldn't hear any shouts or footsteps behind him, but that didn't mean much with the storm drowning out everything save the noise of Scott's gunfire.

His heart dropped in his chest when he heard a very different kind of snapping sound coming from multiple directions: the distinct report of Apparition. The Death Eater reinforcements had arrived.

***---~**~---***  

It took Ron about five minutes of inactivity to be bitterly reminded of how much he really, _really_ hated being left behind.

The relief that Hermione wasn't part of Harry's mad plan to march up to the front of the manor was tempered by the fact that Harry _was_ , and he was taking Ginny with him. If Ron had his way, they would all go or not go at all. Splitting up didn't feel right.

It certainly didn't help that a few minutes after Harry and Ginny had exited the woods, their destination could no longer be seen. The rain steadily increased in tempo until it drowned out all sight and sound with a heavy deluge that soaked through Ron's clothes so quickly he might as well have not been wearing any. The smoke grenades Scott had indicated earlier seemed more or less useless once the weather took that kind of turn.

Scott had reached the same conclusion. “Forget about the grenades.”

“Gladly,” Ron muttered. He had been none too eager to handle Scott's dangerous Muggle weaponry in the first place.

“I can't even see the fountain now,” Hermione fretted. She was gnawing on her lower lip with evident worry.

“They're fine,” Scott said. He was prone in the mud with his rifle resting on some kind of two-legged stand.

Hermione left her (relatively) dry spot beneath an arching tree and huddled next to Scott. “Tell me what they're doing!”

“Walking. Or, you know, shuffling.”

“Ginny's not tripping Harry, is she? She hasn't been under the Cloak like us, I wish we'd had time to let her practice…”

Scott wiped water from his face and pushed his fringe up away from his eyes. “I can't tell at this distance. But they're still upright.”

“Just use your binoculars, or the thing on your gun,” Ron suggested.

“I would if I could. Glass appears opaque in my optic range, it's surface temperature only.” Scott waved a hand at his weapon in an exasperated gesture. “Kharadjai tech has projected optics and integrated imaging to get around that, but I'm stuck with contemporary GEP equipment for the most part. Can't have the locals getting ahead of themselves if I lose something.”

“Of course. We have to be kept in our place,” Hermione said tartly.

“Says the girl from a hopelessly backward, borderline pre-Copernican society that is the very definition of technologically stagnant. It's not the wizarding folk I'd be concerned about finding a Voight magazine with eight millimetre caseless. The Muggles might reverse engineer that shit; a witch would probably think it was food or something. Try to eat it.”

“You are so deliberately offensive at times,” Hermione remarked in a tone that was more resigned than angry.

Ron didn't understand even half of what Scott had said, but he knew when he was being insulted. At that moment, however, he barely cared. “Well, however you do it just keep watching Harry and Gin. Be a prick later.”

“They're almost to the front wall,” Scott reported. “If you want to see, use the scope on the gun, it has a night setting. I just hate that green shit. It hurts my eyes.”

Hermione looked at him in surprise. “Your eyes? I've seen you look straight at the sun without blinking…”

“Yeah, the eyes are actually the only part of Kharadjai anatomy with any major physiological differences. They're at the front wall, moving towards Kylie's window,” Scott updated before continuing, “There are advantages, but we're all still subject to our little quirks. I used to get migraines working with green screens.”

Ron carefully crawled over Scott and settled down next to the rifle. He raised it up and pressed his eye to the scope, but couldn't see anything. “It's not working.”

Scott reached over and moved something that clicked. Ron found himself looking at one of the distant columns in front of the house. The world was rendered in a palette of contrasting shades of green, glowing and fuzzy. The rain streaked down in blurred lines that made it even harder to discern details.

“It's not great, huh?” he said, blinking a bit in an attempt to focus better.

“Not in this weather.”

There was a flash of white to the right of the column Ron was looking at. He turned that way, rotating the weapon on its stand. The motion was so disorienting through the magnified sight that he had to pull away. “This is harder than I thought. Did you see that light?”

“I think someone lit their wand.” Scott had moved up into a sitting position and was leaning forward, staring hard into the darkness.

“They call _that_ being careful?” Hermione gasped.

“Probably didn't have a choice. Ron, I might need that gun back.”

Ron removed his eye from the sight and pushed the weapon back towards Scott without protest. It had been nice to be able to see, but he didn't exactly trust himself with the Muggle implement. The only thing he really knew about it was that it shouldn't be played with.

“Where are the guards? Did they see?” Hermione asked anxiously.

“The guys on the right went to the back of the house. The guys on the left are just hanging out on the side yard, they haven't moved yet,” Scott answered.

“Thank goodness for that.”

The rain was not letting up in the slightest. Deprived of the night vision offered by Scott's firearm, Ron was once again unable to see further than ten feet in any direction. It was more than a bit frustrating. If Harry ran into trouble, Ron would be useless.

A thought occurred to him. He shifted closer to Hermione, putting his mouth at her ear so he wouldn't have to raise his voice. “Do you think you remember where the house ends to the right, if you had to aim there?”

“I believe so,” she said.

“Good. If Scott says there's a problem, maybe we could start casting to the right and left and make the Death Eaters look our way.”

Hermione hesitated, then nodded her assent. “If we must. We should keep that plan in reserve, though. Our spells will be very visible right now; Scott can fire his rifle without giving away his precise location.”

“All right, well, we'll let him go first,” Ron said with a grin.

Scott began speaking again. “They're at the door. Looks like it's already — what the fuck…”

“What? What's happening?” Hermione demanded.

“Harry just grabbed Kylie from the steps. There's a Death Eater right inside, they're hiding and he's…” Scott pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and stared through the sight. “If he takes another step then that's it.”

“Have they been seen?” Ron said tersely. He readied himself to react, though he wasn't entirely certain what he was going to do. “Scott?”

“…Here we go,” Scott said under his breath, and pulled the trigger.

 ** _BAM!_** Ron flinched back and clapped his hands to his head, but it was far too late for that. A familiar sonic splinter once again ripped through his left ear. He clenched his teeth and rode out the pain, waiting for it to subside and the ringing to begin. Next to him, Hermione had also covered her ears, looking dazed.

Ron dropped his hands and pushed himself up on his knees. “ _Same fucking ear!_ ” he snarled at Scott, drawing his wand. Scott might have said something in reply, but all Ron could hear to his left was a piercing tone and his own heartbeat.

Scott was already shooting again. Two shots, then three more in quick succession. Ron still couldn't see. The rain sheeted downwards with unrelenting regularity and he had no targets.

“Scott, what is happening?!” Hermione shouted.

“They've got Kylie and they're coming right up the middle!” he replied. He swung his weapon to the left and fired. Barely two feet away, the shots broke across Ron's skin like a stinging gust, sharp and disorienting.

A spell came zipping out of the darkness, a blinding streak of light that was dazzling in the wet night. It flew harmlessly over their heads. Ron blinked and stared down towards the manor, trying to discern where it had come from. A second spell sparked to life at the right side — he pinpointed the source to a general area, and raised his wand to return fire.

Hermione seized onto his arm and dragged it back down. “No, Ron! We can't give away our position!”

Ron rounded on her to argue but was interrupted by a sound that sent a shiver down his spine — the distinct crack of Apparition.

“Oh, no,” Hermione gasped.

“Multiple hostiles. They're coming in at the front and sides of the house, I see six, eight, ten, too many,” Scott said in a dry cadence. “Harry's out in front, almost here… I'll swing left and — no, they're moving. No time. Grab him and we'll fall back, they're at the bottom, just help them up!”

 ** _BAM!_** Out on the lawn something sparked brightly in reaction to Scott's shot, and he muttered inaudibly in response. Ron stood and rushed forward into the brush, skidding down the muddy hillside with Hermione close behind. He didn't get far before he heard the crashing of branches being forced aside.

“Harry, is that you?” he said, raising his wand.

“Yeah!” Harry's welcome reply emerged from a thick tangle of bushes. “The Cloak is caught, give me a second. Kylie, grab Ron's hand!”

A small, pale appendage snaked out of the foliage and Ron took it, yanking Kylie up the embankment. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione doing the same for Ginny. Then came Harry, clawing his way up with furious determination. They all reached the top and slid down the short crest to the other side, gasping, filthy and soaking wet.

Scott had resumed firing. On his third shot a bright flash from the garden below illuminated the night like a bolt of lightning, brief and dazzling. The strobe effect left Ron with a still picture of every drop of rain in that moment, imprinted like a dark photograph.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, bracing off tree trunks to avoid slipping and not always succeeding. Ron helped Kylie get up; the young girl was breathing hard and trembling. Ron just hoped she had the strength to keep running. At least they didn't have far to go.

The storm that had once been a hindrance became more useful, even as it made descending to the field a bit tricky. The Death Eaters were no doubt having just as much trouble with movement and vision as Ron was. He slid from tree to tree, using them like stepping stones, in too much of a hurry to be more careful. Everyone else went down with the same reckless speed. Ron couldn't see Scott, but since he was no longer shooting, he was likely right behind them.

As the trees thinned and the ground became level, Ron reflected that it was the second time he had been running for his life through a darkened wood (and if he went back to his times in the Forbidden Forest, it wasn't even just the second). He thought he might try to get used to it. It seemed like running away was the only thing they could do against the Dark Lord and his growing army, which was not a pleasant realisation.

From somewhere back up the hill came the sound of another short, sharp explosion. Ron spun around, concerned that Scott had been left, but the Kharadjai was only a few feet behind.

Ron opened his mouth to see if Scott had done something with his Muggle weapons or if the Death Eaters had resorted to blowing up the woods in their pursuit, but Scott grabbed his shoulder and propelled him forward again.

“Just run!” Scott barked out. He sprinted ahead and scooped Kylie up into his arms; the slight girl had been slowing, unable to keep the pace with her taller companions. “Hermione, they're working on that area spell!”

“How close?” she shouted back.

“Too far north but they'll figure it out real quick!”

“Everyone group up!” Harry called out. They were at the edge of the fields, stumbling over the unevenly ploughed ground and trampling a farmer's wheat in the process. “This is it!”

Ron reached out and latched onto Hermione's hand, preparing himself for Disapparating. Harry was doing the same with Ginny. Scott rushed over to Hermione and set Kylie back on her feet. He took her limp hand and placed it firmly on Hermione's arm.

“We're good, go,” he said, and turned back towards the estate.

Just before they disappeared, Ron looked up to see the shining orbs of lit wands bobbing at the top of the hill like faerie lights. Shadows darted among them in search, hunting for their quarry as they surged down the slope.

Then the world contracted and twisted, pressing inward with discomfiting pressure, followed by the sensation of falling.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on the cold stone floor of Grimmauld Place.

There was a heavy silence interspersed with breathing and a few sighs of a relief. Eventually, Hermione broke it. “I apologise for the rough landing, it wasn't the best job of Side-Along…”

With a groan, Ron pushed himself into a sitting position. “You were brilliant,” he assured her. “If I'd done it we'd be Splinched all over the room.”

They were downstairs in the kitchen. Ron supposed everyone had spent enough time there that it was a natural enough destination, and it had the added benefit of avoiding Mrs Black's portrait.

Harry was shakily rising to his feet, taking stock of the room. “Is everyone all right? Ginny?”

“Fine,” Ginny said from somewhere on the other side of the table.

“Looks like we're all here, except for Scott,” Harry said, though he didn't sound all that worried. “He's probably— _Ginny!”_

“What?” Ginny said in response to Harry's panicked exclamation.

“Are you hit? You've got blood on your clothes, let me see you—”

That gave Ron the motivation he needed to get up. “Gin?”

“I'm _fine!”_ Ginny said, exasperatedly swatting Harry away from where he had been tugging at her garments. “It's not _my_ blood.”

Harry still looked concerned. “You're sure? You can be hit and not feel it.”

Ginny just rolled her eyes. “I'm not hit! It's all from the man on the stair, the Death Eater.”

“Grebbs?”

“Yeah. I think Scott shot him,” Ginny said, more subdued.

Ron had no idea who they were talking about, but as long as Ginny wasn't bleeding he didn't much care. “So nobody got hurt by anything, right? Except the damn trees, I mean,” he said, gingerly prodding a long scrape on his forearm.

“Kylie?” Hermione gently inquired. She had helped the younger girl into one of the nearby chairs; Kylie was still trembling violently.

“Okay,” Kylie whispered through chattering teeth. “Scott?”

“He's fine, he'll be here any moment,” Hermione reassured. “Ron, could you start the fire? She's freezing.”

Ron was beginning to feel more than a little cold himself. In the shaky aftermath of the adrenaline rush, his heart rate was slowing and the stone basement was a poor place to be in soaking wet clothes. The chill sank into his skin, settling in his chest and making him want to cough.

“So, where the hell is Kreacher, anyway?” he said to Harry as he ignited the fire. The task had made him think of Grimmauld Place's resident house-elf. “The lights were on when we Apparated in, weren't they?”

“Yeah, none of us lit them. He's around here somewhere, but if he doesn't want to see us then I'm fine with that,” Harry said with distaste.

“Just not like him, that's all. I thought he'd have shown up to say something horrible by now.”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “That's true. He hasn't even been over by Mrs. Black's portrait.”

“Maybe the little snot learned his lesson,” Ginny chimed in.

Harry shook his head. “Not likely. I mean, it'd be great if he'd just go die in the attic or something, but…”

“Whatever. As long as he stays out of our way, I don't care. And, Harry, stop it, this is embarrassing enough already!” Ginny complained.

Ron turned around in bewilderment and saw a blushing Harry looking away from Ginny. Ron didn't get it until he noticed that Ginny's arms were crossed over the source of Harry's sheepish stance; the rain had plastered the fabric of her shirt to her chest, making it extremely evident that she was quite cold.

“Ugh!” Ron groaned in disgust, stepping away from them. “Why don't you get back under the Cloak until you're decent, Gin, however long that's going to take. If we have that kind of time.”

“Sod off, Ron. Harry, don't just stand there, be a useful boyfriend and warm me up,” Ginny said, wrapping her arms around Harry.

“Um, Gin, you've got blood on you…” Harry said, though he didn't pull away.

Ron could only take so much of that. He left the two of them by the fireplace and went back over to Hermione and Kylie. The small Gryffindor girl was the very picture of misery, shivering in her chair with her wet strawberry-blonde hair hanging in long, limp strings that stuck to her pale face. Her wide eyes were ringed by dark circles and filled with hopelessness. Hermione was rubbing at the girl's arms, trying to warm her.

“Scott will be here very soon, you're safe now, you're all right,” Hermione said soothingly.

“W-what about m-my parents?” Kylie stammered.

Hermione met Ron's eyes with a sad expression, worrying at her lower lip. Carefully, Ron very slightly shook his head. Kylie didn't need their theories, not right then.

“We don't know where they are, yet,” Hermione said truthfully. “But we got your letter, and we came to get you.”

“…T-thank you,” Kylie whispered.

“They didn't hurt you at all, did they?”

Kylie shook her head.

“That's good. Let's get you warmed up and then see what we can do for a change of clothes. I'm afraid everything will be a bit big for you, but at least they'll be dry,” Hermione said.

Ron grabbed another chair and placed it in front of the fire whilst Hermione led Kylie over to it. Harry and Ginny had also gathered close to the flames, and for a few minutes the group silently huddled together in the warmth.

“Your hair is steaming,” Harry said to Ginny. He had his arms around her waist and they were looking very cosy, which Ron was doing his level best to ignore.

“I'm thinking about cutting it,” she replied. “It's a bit long for fighting and whatnot.”

Harry made a noise of disappointment. “Maybe you could just pin it back?”

The sound of footsteps descending the basement steps interrupted them. Scott jogged down into the room still dripping wet and covered in more mud than the rest of them put together. He set his rifle on the table and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking almost straight up.

“Good, you got the fire. Everybody all right?” he asked.

“Fine. Just a few scrapes is about it,” Harry told him.

Hermione was giving Scott a look of concern. “What took you so long? Did you have trouble leaving?”

Scott wasn't listening to her. He held out his hands and went to Kylie in the manner of someone approaching a skittish animal. “Kylie, are you okay? It's me, Scott. I'm just a little different right now.”

Kylie was staring at him in wide-eyed wonder, mouth open. In retrospect, Ron appreciated that he'd been given the opportunity to at least consider the possibility that Scott was actually an adult before witnessing it. He was sure it was quite a shock.

“We read your letter and came as quick as we could,” Scott continued. “You warming up?”

“But, how?” Kylie said with wonder.

Scott sighed. “Not moving off that topic, huh? Okay, there's a few things about me you don't know… First and foremost, this is my real age. I was pretending to be a teenager so I could go to school with you guys.”

“Why?”

“To help Harry, mostly. He needs help with this whole war thing. As it turns out, I guess you needed help, too. So here we are.”

Ron didn't think that was much of an answer, all things considered, but Kylie closed her mouth and did not inquire any further. That was understandable; she was sliding lower in her chair, wilting with exhaustion.

Scott noticed that as well. “Tell you what, how about you go with Hermione for now? She'll find a nice room for you and then we'll talk more once you're feeling better. Hermione, if you have any ideas…?”

“She can stay in Mr and Mrs Weasley's room; it's one of the cleanest, from what we saw,” Hermione said. “Come on, Kylie, I'll get you a shirt and see you to bed.”

Ron watched them go. The thought of sleep was wonderful indeed, but he was very reluctant to leave the fire. He thought about just sleeping in a chair right by the crackling flames, though he changed his mind when he remembered doing something similar after the battle at Hogwarts. His neck still hadn't forgiven him.

“Scott,” Harry called, motioning for the Kharadjai to come over.

Scott obliged. “I assume no one here is a casualty?” he said as he approached them.

“Not in the physical sense,” Harry said dryly. “Did you make it out okay?”

“I crossed the road and came back after I found a barn at the end of the other field. They had that spell to stop Disapparation up by that point, so ideally they're still wandering out in the wheat,” Scott explained.

“I hope they all catch cold,” Ginny said spitefully.

“Pneumonia would be even better, and possibly fatal.”

“I heard an explosion when we were going down the hill, was that you?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, I was wondering about that, too,” Ron said. “I tried to ask you about it, but you were a bit pushy about hurrying, for some reason…”

Scott chuckled darkly. “Someone found my claymore. Hopefully multiple someones.”

Harry didn't look ready to laugh about that, but he didn't look all that horrified, either. “All right, um… I think we should talk everything over in the morning. We should try to get some sleep.”

“That's fine. Everyone did some good work tonight, I want you all to know that. Get some rest. Oh, that reminds me — did Hermione tell you guys about your room?”

“Our room? What about it?” Harry said, confused.

“You'll have to stay somewhere else this time. She said there's a portrait in there that can't know we're here. She put a spell on the door so you can't get in.”

“Phineas,” Harry said with disgust. “That wanker. I'd forgotten. She's right, we can't go in there.”

“Wonderful,” Ron groaned. He had _so_ been looking forward to his old bed. “On the up side, I guess we can have our own rooms.”

“Harry can sleep in my room, I don't mind sharing,” Ginny casually offered.

Harry blanched and his eyes darted towards Ron. “I, er… I don't know about that…”

Ron was too sodding tired for a row with his sister. “You know what? Do what you like and I'll yell at you for being a slag in the morning, because right now I don't effing care,” he said to Ginny.

“Good enough for me; come on, Harry,” Ginny said brightly, tugging on Harry's arm.

“…We'll talk about it,” Harry said nervously, resisting her pull.

They drifted away, still talking, and Ron prepared himself to leave the seductive warmth of the fireplace. Scott was the only one who didn't look that tired, which wasn't all that unexpected. For a trained soldier, their relatively short outing into the night probably hadn't been all that taxing. Ron wished he could feel the same way. Maybe he would, at some point, if they kept running rescue missions. He tried not to think about that too much. He knew not every mission could end so well.

Scott turned away to go back to the table and Ron noticed that he was limping slightly. Glancing down, the low light of the fire revealed that the back of Scott's left trouser leg was soaked with blood from a bit below the knee to the very bottom.

“What happened to your leg?” Ron said. “Don't tell me you got hit by your own bomb again.”

“Of course not,” Scott scoffed, as if such a thing would never happen, even though it had before. “Someone got lucky.”

“Ouch. What was it?” In a way, Scott was fortunate he had been struck with some sort of offensive spell. Being stunned or paralysed would have been even worse.

Scott shrugged as he picked his weapon back up from the table. “I have no idea. Took a nice chunk out of the back of my leg, though. Not a huge deal, but it surprised me. Pissed me off enough I almost doubled back, but I was afraid Harry would be an idiot and stay, too.”

Ron grimaced. “And then I'd have to, and Hermione and Gin would never stay behind, and we'd all still be there. Because, you know, Harry _would_ be an idiot.”

“Yeah. I know. Anyway, go get a change of clothes from Hermione and then get some sleep. I'm going to do a sweep of the building just in case, then do the same.”

“Want some company?” Ron offered half-heartedly, not really wanting to walk all over Grimmauld Place.

“No. I've got it.”

Ron wearily made his way upstairs, not knowing where he was going to sleep and not particularly caring. Any empty bed would do. No doubt he'd be roused from whatever bed he chose before he was ready by either Hermione or Harry, or possibly both, as they would be eager to discuss the night's events more thoroughly. Ron understood the necessity, but didn't think there was any rush.

Everyone was still alive, which was good enough for the time being.


	9. This Island, These Tides

**9**

**This Island, These Tides**

**\---**

_“When immersed in the environment, it becomes_  
 _easy for even an experienced integrationist to lose_  
 _sight of the details in favor of wider focus. This_  
 _is never more apparent than during the ‘down time’,_  
 _the long stretches that exist between objectives._  
 _Primarius training is designed to impart patience,_  
 _but many in the field find that patience does not_  
 _always equate to tolerance. When the adrenaline_  
 _fades, the mundane then attempts to reassert itself._  
 _As is often the case, the most subtle lessons of_  
 _integration are the hardest to bear, for they insist_  
 _that events must unfold at their own pace. The same_  
 _trauma that is lost on battle-hardened integrationists_  
 _can leave Primes exhausted, physically and emotionally._  
 _True integration requires a constant adjusting to_  
 _the needs of those within your care. An integrationist_  
 _must learn to accept that, quite frequently, those_  
 _needs cannot be met with effort, but only by time.”_  


—The Guiding Light: An Integrationist’s Guide to Understanding Primes,  
                        Chapter IX: When Strength Fails

\--- 

“Harry.”

Harry was clinging to the edge of unconsciousness, nearly sunk into the full embrace of welcomed sleep. The insistent tug of the darkness behind his eyelids was not quite strong enough for him to ignore the sudden speaking of his name, though, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Harry,” the voice said again, more insistently.

The flat tones of the accent identified it as Scott, and therefore not an immediate threat. Harry was accordingly not enthused enough to respond. That had a lot to do with the heavy warmth wrapped around him. The weight which so attractively draped itself across him was none other than Ginny, who had started the night collapsed on the opposite side of the bed and had, at some point, shifted to cling to him. Not that he was complaining. If he had known that having her in his bed like a heated blanket would be so conducive to slumber, he might have tried it sooner.

She did provide some distraction, however. Every time she inhaled, her breasts pushed themselves against his ribcage, a delicious sensation which made him think that perhaps women with Lila’s level of endowment were overrated. Ginny was just so… _pert_ , he supposed was the word.

A sigh. “Harry… I know you aren’t asleep. I need to talk to you.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and grimaced. It was clear that Scott wasn’t going away. Harry blinked back encroaching sleep, and tried to focus. After a few seconds, he could see Scott’s dim form towering over him, backlit by the low light from the open doorway.

“What?” Harry whispered.

“I have a question and, no, it can’t wait.” Scott tilted his head more towards Ginny. “Someone’s a sound sleeper.”

Harry was grateful for that, but even Ginny would probably wake up if he had to shove her off him. “I can’t exactly move right now.”

“Really? Did you pee before you went to bed? It can be difficult to just lay there, when you’re so comfortable, but there’s that insistent pressure and all you can think about is waterfalls and spigots… All that liquid, pouring, gushing, trickling…”

God damn him. Harry’s attention shifted to his bladder, and it responded accordingly. “Just when I think I can’t hate you more…”

“And before you take a leak, you have to talk to me. Another obstacle on the road to relief.”

Finally, Harry gave up and shifted from his position. Somehow he managed to slide out from under Ginny’s limbs and slump gracelessly to the floor. Ginny snuffled a bit in her sleep, but didn’t wake. She must have been more exhausted than she’d let on.

Out in the hallway, Harry motioned for Scott to hurry up. “Go on, what’s so bloody important that it can't wait?”

“I was poking around downstairs and ran into some kind of prope-human sapient named Kreacher. Short, oddly coloured with large ears. He said he lived here, is that true?”

Harry sighed. “I should have mentioned him before. Yes, he does live here. He’s the Black family house-elf.”

Scott cast a glance around the grimy, poorly lit hall. “Don’t they clean or something?”

“He’s mad. Spends all of his time talking to the portrait of Mrs Black in the entryway. He also hated Sirius and had a part in… what happened.”

“He’s a traitor?”

Harry didn’t want to relive those events, not again. He tried to move on. “I don’t know if we can call him that. He was never loyal to us in the first place, he just answered to Sirius and now me because he has to. He’s an evil little shit, though. I was hoping he’d stay in whatever hole he crawled into.”

“Do I need to kill him?”

That brought Harry up short. Scott had the blank look on his face that commonly accompanied his most difficult questions and statements. He looked neither eager nor loath to actually carry out such an act; he merely wanted to know if it were necessary.

“No. He can’t leave the house or betray us or do much of anything unless I tell him to,” Harry said. “He might call you some names, but that’s about all he can do.”

“I think he’s afraid of me, actually. Or at least what I was carrying.” Scott tapped a finger against one of his handguns. “We ran into each other by surprise. He asked me what I was doing sullying this house, I asked him who he was supposed to be and how he got in. He told me his name and that he served here, so I said I’d have to check on that with you. He started to leave, I pulled a gun on him, said to not fucking move; he took off like a bat out of hell.”

Harry frowned in thought. “Huh… He’s been a wizarding house-elf his whole life, almost never leaves this damn place. But if he was afraid of your guns, then he must know what they are…”

“I may have the answer to that, as it turns out. But it can wait until morning.”

“I’m so glad this couldn’t,” Harry said sarcastically, though he was torn with the need to return to bed and the curiosity raised by Scott’s assertion.

“Go ahead and sleep in, everybody needs it. Nothing on the agenda for today but discussion, anyway.”

Harry nodded and turned away, ready to relieve his aching bladder and crawl back into a bed that would still be warmed by the second presence he was not yet accustomed to. He and Ginny were both dressed, at least, and had been so tired that they’d collapsed onto the same bed and fallen asleep without having to think much about it. Which was fine. It wasn’t how Harry had imagined his first time sharing a bed with a girl would go, but it was a good way to start (not that he dared to hope it would continue). His protestations the previous night when Ginny had suggested sharing had stemmed mainly from his anxiety in not knowing what she was expecting from him. If she just wanted to cuddle for warmth, he was more than willing to give it a go.

She was still asleep when he returned to his (their?) room, and he couldn’t think of any way to get back in his previous position, so he moved to the other side of the bed and put his arm over her waist. They were fully clothed, but it was still the most intimate Harry had ever been with another person. That was sort of a depressing thought. Of course, given how little the Dursleys had ever been tactile, it was good he hadn’t developed some kind of neurotic aversion to being touched at all. He’d never really thought about that before. He supposed, in that sense, he was lucky such a toxic upbringing hadn’t damaged him more thoroughly.

Or that’s what he thought, anyway. He knew better than to solicit any other opinions.

He blinked a few times, felt the darkness at the edges of his vision start to swell and fold in. His limbs ached with the memory of exertion and cold; a myriad of scratches stung against the cloth of his shirt whenever he shifted. It didn’t matter. Ginny’s heat radiated through the layers of cloth and skin, pushing aside the thoughts and pain and then consciousness.

Then he blinked again, this time against the light.

He had no idea how long he had slept. Ginny was gone, and a quick sweep with his hand revealed the spot she had occupied was no longer warm. Harry had never closed off the room completely after Scott had come in, and the soft light that shone across his bleary vision came reflected off the partially opened door. There were no windows in the room, which was good, since he probably would have woken up much sooner had that been the case.

With a groan, he pushed himself up and out of the bed and staggered into the hallway. Some of the bedroom doors were opened and others were closed, and he realised he had no idea who was sleeping where.

Glancing back into his new quarters, he noticed something odd, a detail he had not perceived without anything to illuminate the scene. The furnishings were clearly disarranged, with randomly opened drawers and odd and ends scattered about. He was fairly certain neither he nor Ginny had caused the mess, and couldn’t think of any reason why Scott and Hermione would have when they had searched the place the night before. Someone had been looking for something. His heart rate quickened: had it been Snape?

He considered that as he went downstairs. There was no evidence that Snape had returned to Grimmauld Place at any point. The added protections left by the Order had been undisturbed when Harry had arrived, and no doubt there were further safeguards that were not apparent. A more likely culprit, Harry reasoned with burgeoning fury, was that rat Mundungus. He’d stolen more than a few things from the Black estate, and likely hadn’t felt the need to be subtle about it.

Harry stumped into the kitchen to be greeted by the sight of Hermione, Ron and Ginny rummaging through cupboards and generally making a mess in what seemed to be the pursuit of breakfast. Scott was nowhere to be found.

“Find anything edible?” Harry asked as he approached them.

“Not much, I’m afraid. We won’t starve today, but we will need supplies soon,” Hermione said, placing tins on the table. “I’d rather not dip into our emergency stores unless we have to.”

“No point in eating any of that when we can go to the shop,” Harry agreed.

“Will it be safe going to Muggle shops?” Ginny wondered.

Harry bit back his automatically pessimistic response in favour of something more encouraging. “Well… They can’t watch _all_ the shops. There’re a lot of them out there,” he said, remembering his car trip with Lila when the Muggle world had seemed so vast.

“I doubt they’re watching any. They may be watching this particular area, however, so we’ll want to go farther afield.” Hermione turned away from the tins she had been examining with an expression of mild disgust. “These are edible, in the strictest sense of the word.”

Ron sighed. “We do have Muggle money, right, because I can’t do this more than once. Breakfast was not meant to come in tins, that’s just… Blasphemy, I suppose.”

“Your mum isn’t here to cook for us, so even after we buy food, I suggest you lower your expectations,” Hermione advised.

Ron leaned his head back and groaned. “God, we are just off to a great start. We should have brought Lila instead of Scott: handy in the kitchen and nicer to look at. Uh, not as nice as _you_ , though, of course,” he quickly added.

“Good save,” Harry said.

Hermione just rolled her eyes. “I know what you meant. And while Lila is quite pretty, I don’t find that reason to prefer her. Scott has his foibles, but at least we know how to work with him.”

“I like Lila, she’s got her head on straight,” Ginny protested, defending the woman she had befriended (an unexpected attachment that still bemused Harry).

“Not as much as Charlie does,” Ron snickered. “And he doesn’t just like her head, he _really_ likes her—”

“Ron!” Hermione yelped.

“Hey, where is Scott, anyway?” Harry asked.

“He’s upstairs with Kylie. Oh, poor Kylie…” Hermione sighed. “She had a panic attack when she woke up this morning. I think she didn’t know where she was.”

“How are we going to tell her about her parents…?” Ginny said slowly.

That was a good question, and one that Harry didn’t want to face. “Er… Maybe Scott will tell her. He knows her best, anyway.”

“I hate to just push the responsibility onto Scott—” Hermione began.

“I don’t,” Ron interjected.

“But, in this case, it might be for the best. It would be easier, coming from him. Not that it could ever be easy…”

Harry couldn’t really understand what Kylie was about to go through: betrayal and disappointment had been constant expectations from what he had nominally considered his ‘family’. Even when he had latched on to Sirius, there had always been a part of himself held in reserve, reluctant to trust and become vulnerable. From what he had seen, he thought that Kylie might have had a similar upbringing. But, for whatever reason, she had never become hardened like Harry, who saw emotional abuse as routine.

He frowned, a little disturbed by his own contemplations. He may not have had much experience in the area, but he was self-aware enough to know that those were not good traits to bring into a relationship with Ginny. Perhaps he had tried to chuck her for the wrong reasons.

He couldn’t express that sentiment to her, of course. Not again, unless he was feeling extra masochistic.

“Knut for your thoughts?” Ginny offered, taking Harry’s hand as she sidled up to him.

With a start, he discovered that Ron and Hermione had resumed scavenging for breakfast whilst he had drifted off into his reverie. He shook himself. “Sorry, I was miles away,” he confessed.

“I saw. Look, I know you’re worried about Kylie, but I really think Scott should handle it. She likes him, for some reason.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, for some reason. Aren’t you done hating him by now?”

“I never _hated_ him,” Ginny protested. “He was just such a prat, all the time. Especially to me!”

“I guess that's true. Still, you have to admit he’s been better lately.”

“He’s been older lately,” she pointed out. “He’s more tolerable as an adult, for whatever that’s worth.”

“I’d just like it if you two got along better. This is all hard enough without us fighting with each other,” Harry said a bit more plaintively than he’d intended.

“So sorry to be a burden! Too bad you didn’t just ditch me after all, then you’d only have Scott to worry about,” Ginny said with a huff, pulling her hand from Harry’s.

Harry groaned and rubbed at his eyes. “Oh, come off it. Don’t try to make this into a row, it’s too early, I’m still tired and I’m hungry.”

“It’s actually not early, it’s a bit after noon.”

“Really?” Harry blinked with surprise. “Oh. I didn’t know what time we went to bed.”

“Hmmm,” Ginny hummed with satisfaction. “Yes, _we_ did go to bed, didn’t we? That was cosy.”

He didn’t disagree, but he was also hesitant to encourage her too much. When it came to their relationship, Ginny tended to take a mile when given an inch, as if she were trying to make up for lost time (or an inevitable shortage of time, which was a much more depressing concept). Harry certainly didn’t mind the occasional snog and snuggle; however, he wasn’t sure he could handle anything more on top of everything else. Additional complications were the last thing he needed, and going further with Ginny was sure to be very complicated, indeed.

Maybe feeling that way made him a poof. Maybe he needed to just get over it and grow up. Or maybe he was making an arse of himself with the daft assumption that Ginny might want to have sex with him in the first place. He was an emotionally damaged wannabe hero with a death sentence hanging over him; it was a wonder she wanted to be with him at all. He should be happy with what was being offered, even if the limits of that intangible offer remained a mystery.

“I don’t want to assume anything,” he said hesitantly, “but should I put my things in our room, because I slept great, and if you did, too, then maybe we could sleep again, in the same place, that is, if you wanted to… But if you don’t, I understand, it’s kind of a weird situation and we were just living in totally separate dormitories and then at your house with your mum and maybe it’s not… right…”

Ginny stepped forward, took him by the back of his head and kissed him on the mouth. It was chaste compared to some of their past kisses — for which Harry was grateful, considering that Ron was standing _right fucking there —_ but it was still passionate.

“Harry,” she said firmly when she pulled away, “if you don’t show up in our room tonight, I will be _very_ cross with you.”

“Understood,” he said weakly.

“I should probably do something about this, but I can’t even look at you,” Ron jeered from somewhere near the oven.

“Hermione, will you hurry up and share a room with Ron so he’ll stop pretending he’s better than me?” Ginny called without looking away from Harry.

“Leave me out of this, please, I’ve got more important problems than sibling rivalry to deal with. Things such as feeding all of us, and keeping us clothed and alive,” Hermione answered with pronounced sarcasm.

“Someone would have woken up cheerier with a Weasley to keep her warm,” Ginny snipped back.

“Girls, girls — you’re BOTH the prettiest,” came a loud voice from the stairwell. Scott strode down into the kitchen wearing the same rumpled and mud-streaked clothing he had the previous night. His hair was in a frightful state, and it didn’t look as if he’d slept at all.

Harry was just glad the girls had been interrupted before things had escalated. He was in enough pain without any screeching, and Scott’s condescending greeting would neatly pull all aggressions towards him. Harry, thinking of Scott’s many manipulations, wondered if that had been the point.

“Why didn’t you get any sleep?” Harry asked.

“I did sleep, just not in a bed. I camped out on the hallway floor outside your rooms. Ideally, if we were attacked, my hideous dying screams would wake you.”

“Appreciated,” Harry said wryly.

“In a much more likely scenario, you would blow up the entire building killing whatever it was that attacked you,” Hermione said acerbically.

“Wow,” Scott drawled. “Maybe you _should_ have spooned with Ron last night.”

“No, I should not have, and…” With a sigh, Hermione trailed off. “Why are we all arguing this morning? We have shopping to do and Horcruxes to find and we’re all alive and we’re all safe, and… and we should be grateful!  And poor Kylie had to see all that violence because her parents are just _horrible_ …”

Ron was at her side the minute her voice began to crack under the pressure of barely repressed tears. “Hermione, we’re just fooling around, nobody’s really angry…”

“ _Oh…_ ” Hermione buried her face in Ron’s shoulder and made a few odd, stifled snorting noises.

Ron rubbed her back soothingly. “It’s all right, love. It was a rough night, but we made it out.”

“We did last night, but what about the next?” Hermione groaned into Ron’s shirt, echoing Harry’s own thoughts.

“Nothing we can do about that right now,” Ginny said with a staunchness that was somewhat undermined by the trepidation in her eyes.

“I know. You’re right, of course.” Hermione sniffed a few times and raised her head, though she stayed in Ron’s embrace. “I try to be strong all the time, but I think the shock just hit me. I’m sorry I snapped at you, Ginny.”

Ginny shrugged dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I _will_ worry about it, just a little,” Hermione said, but she smiled. “Oh, dear. I think it was Kylie that sent me over the edge, I just can’t imagine what she’s going through…”

“But what can we do?” Ron said.

“Nothing. It’s something she’ll have to come to terms with,” Hermione said sadly.

As Hermione pulled herself back together, Scott walked over to Harry and leaned towards him. “This is getting heavy,” he remarked.

“I guess,” Harry said uncomfortably. He supposed the trauma of the previous night might seem trivial to Scott. Either that, or he was just trying to alleviate the mood.

Whatever his reasoning, Scott switched his approach. “Kylie is asleep again. She cried herself out, finally.”

Harry’s heart sunk in his chest. “She was crying that long? Did… you tell her about her parents?”

“She didn’t cry that long — it just took her that long to _start_ crying. She was bottled up tight.” Scott’s countenance was compassionate, though something in his eyes went deeper than that (empathy, maybe, but the look passed over his face too quickly for Harry to catalogue). “I haven’t told her our assumptions about her parents. To be honest, though, I’m not sure I’ll have to. She’s not stupid, and I don’t think she would see something like that as being impossible for them. If she’s already struggling to come to terms, I don’t see any reason to interfere.”

“I’m worried about leaving her here if we have to run off again. Kreacher isn’t exactly good company,” Harry said. “I know she can’t go back to Hogwarts; they’d just take her again, especially now that they know we’d come for her. That’s another mouth to feed, too. Money wouldn’t be a problem if I could get into Gringotts, but…”

“Don’t worry about cash. I took half my bank with me, and Lil has the other half. She’s not unreachable if we need it. That should get us where we need to go, depending on how long this lasts.” Scott shrugged. “We may have to consider other eventualities. I can always get my hands on regular money, at least.”

“You have that much?” Harry said with a start. Scott had never acted like he’d had a great deal of money. Then again, it wasn’t like there was much use for pounds at Hogwarts.

“No. But I know where to get it.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I don’t think we’ll have time for you get a real job, mate.”

Scott grinned, an expression that instantly made Harry forget he was conversing with Scott’s adult self. “Yeah, probably not. But operations sometimes call for self-funding in a hurry.”

“So… Like, just take out a loan?” Harry supposed taking out a Muggle loan would be an easy way to get money, especially since a Memory Charm would erase the debt quick enough. That was not very morally sound, of course. He definitely would not want to modify anyone’s memory unless he absolutely had to.

What Scott said next took morality more or less out of the equation. “Drug money, usually. Maybe number rackets or prostitution, depending on time and place, but usually drug money. All cash, large amounts and untraceable. It doesn’t even matter if you can’t make it clean, it’s just more drug violence.”

Harry fought hard to disguise just how appalled he was. “Oh. Um… Look. I don’t want to get involved in selling drugs, we’ve got more than enough problems without Muggle police looking for us too.”

Scott sighed. “No, Harry, we don’t _sell_ the drugs. We steal money from the _people_ who are selling the drugs! We don’t have time to sell drugs, come on. One time, during my GEP-ILT, I was attached to a LEEM unit doing long-term Establishment. They needed a big influx of capital within a month to fund something the MOFA was doing. Anyway, they moved us out of Belgium and set up over Columbia. Two weeks later, we hit the FARC, the ELN and the Calis all in the same forty-eight hours.”

“I am not going to Columbia to steal drug money.”

“You don’t have to; this is London! We don’t need millions, but if we need a few thousand there’s always a place.”

“No.”

“Okay, well let’s look at what we got.” Scott turned and waved a hand at Hermione. “Hermione, are you done freaking out?”

“Yes, and thank you for your concern,” Hermione said tartly, stepping out of Ron’s embrace. “What is it?”

“Break out the handbag and let’s go over some things while we have the time.”

“Wait a minute,” Ron interrupted. “I’m not discussing anything without breakfast first, full stop.”

“It’s lunch, really,” Ginny pointed out.

Ron nodded agreeably. “I’ll have both. And supper, if we can manage it.”

“Then I hope you like beans, because not much else has lasted.” Hermione picked up one of the tins in question. “I think Mrs Weasley took most of the food with her when she left.”

“To the store!” Scott declared.

“I have about sixty pounds I took from home,” Hermione said. “I didn’t feel comfortable taking any charge cards from my parents, they’ll still need them…”

“There’s money in one of those duffel bags I gave you,” Scott said, unconcerned. “Come on, people in Islington have to shop somewhere.”

“People in Islington aren’t being hunted by Death Eaters,” Harry said.

“Neither are we; not here, not yet. I’ve already been outside and there’s nobody around but us and the normal humans you call Muggles, for some reason,” Scott told them.

“And what is it you call them? 'Baseline'? How is that less insulting?”

Hermione took a small breath in relief. “It’s fortunate they haven’t started looking here yet; I just said we might have to go farther into London. It won’t last, so let’s gather up supplies so long as we can. I doubt there will be any Death Eaters at Tesco.”

“Yes, let’s pop out to the shop for tea and crisps, chaps,” Scott proclaimed in a British accent that, though accurate, was unbearably posh.

Harry couldn’t quite suppress the smile that brought. “Sure, just talk like that when we’re at the shop, that won’t draw any attention.”

“Why didn’t you just fake an accent when you came to Hogwarts?” Hermione said. “It’s not as if you aren’t capable of it.”

“Because I didn’t have to. Why keep track of an unfamiliar accent twenty-four hours a day when I can just say I’m an American?”

“So you could at least pretend to be more civilised,” Hermione said, looking down her nose at him.

Scott crossed his arms and gave her a level look. “Should we talk about how the sun never set on the horror of British colonial practises, or just agree that every culture has its monsters, not that you know the first thing about mine?”

Hermione gestured at him dismissively. “Oh, don’t get all snooty. You started this.”

“All right, obviously we need to go shopping, but we also shouldn’t leave Kylie here by herself,” Ginny said.

“I would stay, but it would not be in anyone’s best interests to leave me and my many valuable skills behind. And I say that with total humility,” Scott said gravely.

“That goes for me as well,” Hermione said. “What do the rest of you lot bring to the table?”

“Bloody hell, Hermione. Way to make a bloke feel useless,” Ron groused.

“ _Now_ who’s being snooty?” Harry said.

“I was joking, and you know it,” Hermione told them. “Scott, on the other hand…”

“Is indispensable, always. Now, we could discuss this store trip all day—” Scott began.

“And probably will,” Harry grumbled.

“—but in the interest of expediency, how about we lay this out on a D6 or draw straws or whatever it is you British people do.”

“I’ve got a better idea: I’ll just decide who’s going,” Harry said flatly.

Scott hummed in interest and nodded his head slowly. “Hmm, Harry attempts to act unilaterally… But, how will that go over with the masses?”

“Take a guess,” Ginny said with a glare towards Harry.

“She won’t be mad if you pick her,” Scott said.

Harry ignored them. “We’re _all_ going. Scott, go wake Kylie up. She’ll be safer with all of us than she would be here with one person. Besides, this way she can pick out whatever food she likes.”

Scott grinned. “Common sense? Why, Harry, when did you develop that?”

“It’s a work in progress. Go on, get Kylie. Hermione, let’s put a list together.”

***---~**~---***  

Hermione walked down the cereal aisle, and felt out of place.

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, as, of all her friends, she was the most likely to be familiar with a Muggle grocery (with the probable exception of Scott). She had often gone shopping with her father as a child; she very much doubted that Harry had ever been taken shopping by the Dursleys. Ron and Ginny had limited contact with Muggle society, and Kylie probably didn’t know what ninety percent of the products on the shelves even were.

Hermione’s own discomfort stemmed from the realisation that the world of aisles, dairy refrigerators and microwave meals was no longer familiar to her. Her summers at home were filled with holidays and time spent at the house with her family. It had been a long time since she had gone shopping anywhere but Diagon Alley.

She glanced around the shelves again anxiously. She knew that appearing fearful would only draw attention to herself, but it was hard to be unwary, though there were no robes or wands in sight. It was evening, so instead of a crowd of mothers and small children, there were a smattering of diverse adults wandering the shop. It might have been better for her nerves if the place were emptier. However, she knew that concealment demanded other patrons. Her ragtag group of teens plus two blended in well enough once separated.

The low ceiling and thin shelves didn’t do much to muffle sound. In the next aisle, Scott was speaking to Kylie. “How about sugary stuff? Do you like sweets?”

Hermione didn’t hear any response from Kylie. The girl had been completely silent since she had been roused from bed, and never moved more than a few feet away from Scott. She was a soundless, bedraggled shadow for the Kharadjai, and Hermione worried not only about the slight girl’s state of mind, but also the concern her demeanour might draw from strangers.

Either Kylie had nodded in reply or Scott had decided for her, because there was the sound of a box being dropped in his shopping trolley. “Okay, we’ll try them.”

What were they going to do about Kylie? Hermione pondered that question as she meandered over towards the dairy section. The poor girl couldn’t go back to her home, not after her escape. And while there was no way of knowing what Hogwarts would be like once it reopened, Hermione assumed the worst. It probably wouldn’t be safe for anyone, but especially not for Kylie.

And, yet, Grimmauld Place was hardly suitable quarters for a traumatised child. With the Horcrux hunt ongoing, she would be left there, alone, for days or weeks at a time. Hermione plucked a jar of pasta sauce off the shelf and idly spun it in her hands as she thought. Perhaps Kylie would be better off in Lila’s care, safe wherever the Weasleys had taken refuge.

Hermione winced when yet another thought occurred to her: Kylie would not take separation from Scott well. He was her lifeline, her only point of familiarity and safety. That wasn’t reason enough to risk her well being, of course, but it could be problematic.

Farther up the next aisle, she discovered that Kylie wasn’t the only one trying out sweets.

“Really, Harry?” she said to him, crossing her arms. “All of this time, and the only thing you’ve collected is an armload of Jaffa Cakes!”

“I like them,” Harry said defensively.

“So do I, but they aren’t exactly a well-rounded diet. Scott has a trolley over there, why don’t you drop them in and then find something we could make a meal out of?”

“I was getting to that.”

Meanwhile, Ron and Ginny were loading bottled water into a different trolley. Hermione approached them with a nod of satisfaction. “At least someone is getting something useful.”

“Do we really need all this? Grimmauld Place has water,” Ron said.

“I know, but these will be good in an emergency.”

“How much Muggle money do we even have?” Ginny wondered. “Is water expensive? We’ve got loads of it.”

“Quieter, please,” Hermione nervously reprimanded, looking around for anyone listening in. “We’re Muggles, too, remember. Don’t worry about money. Scott has enough for whatever we buy here.”

“I don’t really want to owe him anything,” Ginny complained.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She didn’t think Scott would be so petty. “Nonsense. I doubt it’s even his money, now go on. See if you can find some sacks of flour.”

She should have known a group trip to the shop would end up with her supervising the entire endeavour. Scott was too busy seeing to Kylie to direct the shopping frenzy, Harry had hardly any experience in a Muggle shop and Ron and Ginny had none, full stop. Although, hadn’t Mrs Weasley bought food and other things at Muggle shops in town? Hermione supposed that if Ron or Ginny had been in attendance at any point, they had been very young.

She went back to Scott and Kylie, who were rolling their trolley down an aisle stocked with crisps and other salty snack foods. Kylie was holding out a bag for Scott’s perusal.

“No, I’m not supposed to eat Twiglets. They make me violent,” Scott said. “What about nacho chips? See if you can find some nacho chips.”

Kylie dutifully began searching the shelves. Hermione went over to Scott to inspect his chosen purchases more closely. He had selected a wide variety of goods, ranging from tinned soup to paper towels. There didn’t seem to be any overarching method to his choices, or at least not one that Hermione could establish.

“All the stuff on the bottom will last,” Scott said, noticing her examination. “Now I’m just getting whatever. How about the other cart?”

“Ron filled it with bottled water, primarily. Harry seems to be wandering about gathering up biscuits.”

“Well, as long as he’s doing something.”

Kylie came trotting back with a large bag of Doritos. Mutely, she held it out to Scott.

He reached out and took it. “Tangy Cheese, huh? Well, that’s probably like nacho cheese. Good work, Kylie. Hey, why don’t you pick out something that looks good? Surprise me.”

Kylie turned to her new task, studying each new item of food with a seriousness that they really didn’t deserve. Her steps were short and hesitant and she paused frequently in rigid poses, hands clasped, the very picture of deep uncertainty.

“She hasn’t said a single word all day,” Scott said quietly to Hermione. “I’m afraid if I stop trying to engage her, she’ll just fold in on herself completely.”

Hermione did not know what to say to that; she had no answers. “…Keep trying,” she said finally. “You’re all she has left right now.”

“Ouch. That’s probably worse than having nothing at all,” Scott chuckled, giving her a knowing glance.

In truth, Hermione felt more than a little insulted he would presume that was her opinion. Did he think her so cruel? Scott wasn’t perfect, but he’d been a godsend for Kylie and more than a little helpful to the rest of them. “That’s not true, don’t say that.”

Scott frowned. “I was joking.”

“I know, but it wasn’t funny. She needs you.”

“And I can’t always be there,” Scott sighed.

“I’ve been thinking about that. We could put her with the Weasleys; Lila will be there, too, which is even better. We just need to know where they’re hiding.”

“Lil said something about a Fido Charm, isn’t that the same magic as Grimmauld?”

Hermione nodded. “ _Fidelius,_ and, yes, they are, and therein lies the problem. I know your ‘apertures’ can circumvent that protection itself, but she’ll still need the Secret Keeper to reveal the place to her or she won’t even be able to know where she is. I’m not sure what the effects of that would be… I’d assume very disorienting, and perhaps even dangerous.”

“Even if you get past the ward, you still can’t know where you are?”

“That’s my understanding, though there isn't any precedent that I’m aware of. Lila is most likely a secondary Secret Keeper — she can’t tell anyone else about the location. Or, I suppose she’s a Kharadjai, so she could break her own enchantment, and then should theoretically lose her own knowledge of the location… Unless you can stop the spell from doing that, as well?”

“I have no idea. I’m the first integrated Kharadjai in this universe, there’s no basis of information for how I can interact with magic.”

“Of course, even if she did break the enchantment and revealed the location, the charm should prevent anyone from gaining the knowledge without also being tied to the spell by the Secret Keeper,” Hermione continued musing, before shaking her head in exasperation. “Oh, my, that’s quite a puzzle. I’d love to experiment, but this would be an exceedingly poor time for it.”

“So, as a secondary Secret Keeper…?”

“You can’t reveal the location of Grimmauld to others. You just know it yourself.”

“Okay, but if everything you just supposed is true, then why wasn’t Kylie affected when you Apparated her in?”

“I took precautions,” Hermione said with a touch of smugness. “I gave her a piece of paper with the address on it when we were at the top of the hill. I thought if she weren't told, she might be unable to Disapparate with us at all.”

Scott looked disappointed. “Oh. And we could have learned so much.”

“At the risk of leaving her before a horde of advancing Death Eaters?” Hermione said incredulously. Surely Scott would not be so ruthless, not to learn something that might not even be important.

“No, no. It’s better this way.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Hermione turned her head and looked back down the aisle at Kylie’s small outline, her slender, timid hands gently picking up snacks and putting them back exactly as she had found them. She looked lost and ragged, wearing clothes too big for her, with her strawberry-blonde hair in tangles and her arms and ankles covered in scratches. She looked like a refugee.

“Scott,” Hermione said softly, “do you think we can win this?”

Scott did not hesitate. “Yes.”

“Did you just say that because you know it’s what I needed to hear?”

“Yes.”

“What do you _really_ believe?” Hermione asked him, well aware that she was unlikely to get a truthful reply.

“I believe Riddle still doesn’t understand what he’s up against. And it will cost him.”

“And once he does understand?”

Scott grinned. “Then things get interesting.” When Hermione stared back at him the smile collapsed, and he sighed. “Look… I can’t tell you the future. You can’t know what doesn’t exist; it’s just a word we use to express and simplify a complicated combination of causality, probability and chaos. And then there’s the shape, and its unmeasurable impact. So if you’re looking for some kind of oracle…”

“No, that’s not at all what I meant,” Hermione said impatiently. “I just wanted an honest answer.”

“From me?”

“Yes, from you! I wanted to know how you felt about our chances. Obviously, that was a mistake.”

“Okay, fine. Then in my professional opinion, we’re doing all right. We have successfully hidden from superior enemy forces, eluded them on multiple occasions and won every combat encounter to date. We have goals to pursue and the ability to pursue them. We’re losing our support structure from the wizarding world, but we’re establishing our own. Intelligence gathering and force composition remain standing issues.”

Hermione liked how easily Scott could break the situation down into individual components to be managed and improved. He was an alien soldier, of course, and the way he saw things was not always applicable to the magical world, but it was still nice to hear.

Kylie came trotting back with a bag of caramel popcorn, which she diffidently placed on top of the pile already in the shopping trolley.

“Ooo, popcorn,” Scott said.

Later, when they all reconvened at the front of the shop to pay, Scott extracted a sizeable stack of pound notes from his pocket. The staff member at the register blinked in surprise, but the look on Scott’s face didn’t invite questions.

“Load it up in the car, kids,” Scott said, ushering Kylie out of the store with a hand on her back.

The car had been retrieved from Scott’s flat. It had taken time to drive it from Ottery St. Catchpole to London, which was why they had ended up shopping in the late evening. There wasn’t anywhere to store a car at Grimmauld Place; it would have to remain in a car park nearby.

It was an oddly comfortable trip, despite how cramped the vehicle was. Ron had been afforded the passenger seat due to his long legs, which left four of them packed in the back. Fortunately, Kylie was a small presence. She sat behind the driver’s seat, alternating between leaning against Ginny’s shoulder and the window. Scott tapped his fingers on the wheel in time with the wireless. Hermione thought she recognised The Kinks, but he had it turned down low. His attention was elsewhere as he moved smoothly through traffic with a practised hand, his eyes assessing every shop front and alleyway. The groceries in the car boot rattled and rustled and nobody felt like talking.

When they arrived at Grimmauld Place, Scott drove past it without stopping. Hermione understood his intent. The others seemed more confused, and Ron opened his mouth to point out Scott’s ‘mistake’.

Scott beat him to it. “Eyes?” he said impatiently, as if he had already expected something from the rest of them, and they were tardy.

“We all have them,” Harry said.

Scott sighed and turned onto a side street that would take them back in the other direction. “Call out targets, people. Give me eyes, three-sixty. You know what to look for.”

Their second pass down the street revealed nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few passing cars and a bare scattering of Muggle pedestrians. Scott helped them unload the supplies and then drove away to where the car would be kept.

“Maybe I should have gone with him,” Harry fretted.

“He can handle it, mate, he’ll be fine,” Ron said.

It took time to carry all the food downstairs to where it was sorted and stored. Hermione didn’t know how much money Scott had left. He was about as forthcoming as ever as to the background specifics of his work. She sometimes wondered if much of what he knew was considered classified by his mysterious government. It was an uneasy thought: what if he was under orders to withhold vital information? Such a directive would seem to run contrary to his mission objectives and was therefore unlikely, but she never could be certain about much when it came to him (a source of their frequent clashes, she knew).

Ginny was examining the Muggle snack food with great interest. Her mum probably hadn’t bought that sort of thing, and most of the food hoarded by students at Hogwarts had been from Hogsmeade. She began to open Scott’s prized bag of nacho crisps, and Hermione quickly stopped her.

“Let’s not open those. They’ll be good for awhile, and it’s early days yet,” she said. They were also Scott’s, and Hermione had no wish to mediate the conflict that would erupt if he found Ginny eating his precious nacho cheese.

Ginny dropped the crisps with a put-upon sigh. “Hermione, I’m bloody starving!”

“I bought some scones for today, they’re in that bag. Just leave enough for everybody!” Hermione said, raising her voice as her friends descended on the package.

Kylie hadn’t moved, of course, so Hermione made sure to grab an extra scone for the girl before someone else unthinkingly ate it. She thought she might be able to coax Kylie to eat without Scott’s intervention. While Kylie followed Scott like a lost lamb — which she was, really — she did seem to have some measure of trust in the rest of them (save for Ron, who seemed to intimidate her).

“All right, what’s next?” Harry said, munching on his scone.

“Clean this place up again?” Hermione suggested. It seemed their stay at Grimmauld Place would not be temporary, and she would prefer more sanitary surroundings.

Ron groaned, Ginny winced and Harry’s expression made clear how unenthusiastic he was at the prospect. “Uh, maybe we can clean as we go? We’ve got a lot of stuff to handle that’s more important,” he said.

“Very well…” Hermione said, disappointed but unsurprised that her suggestion was not well received. “I believe our first priority should be gaining the means to destroy the locket. I would like to be able to get rid of the other Horcruxes as soon as we find them.”

“We could clear out the dining hall, put some protective spells up and…” Harry trailed off. “I don’t know. Did you have a spell in mind?”

Hermione shook her head regretfully. “I’ve haven’t found anything that would help us. I think we would need something specific to the task. But we do know an alternative: basilisk venom.”

“That’s not something we can just buy, is it?” Ron asked.

“No. Not legally, anyway. But we know it works, and we have a source.”

“The Chamber,” Ginny said in a small voice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Harry said immediately, stepping closer to take her hand.

“It certainly wasn’t, Ginny,” Hermione told her. “And besides, that basilisk might save us.”

Scott came thundering down the stairs, making more noise than anyone else had. “Car is parked,” he announced.

“Good. We were just discussing the use of basilisk venom on the Horcruxes, there’s some we can retrieve at Hogwarts.”

“Okay. Do we have a plan to get in?”

“The tunnels, maybe… They’re sort of well known at this point, though,” Harry said thoughtfully.

“The plan will have to come later. There are things we still need to see to, like your strongbox, Scott,” Hermione said. “I also need to talk to you about the Fidelius Charm. I’ve an idea, but only you can tell me if it’s possible.”

“Better eat some thinking food, then,” Scott said lazily. “Kylie, did you eat?”

Kylie had eaten about half of the scone that had been given to her, which was more than Hermione had expected. The girl raised the partially eaten treat for Scott’s inspection.

“Okay, good. Try to eat some more.” Scott turned a dark eye on Ron. “If you ate all of my scones, son, it’s about to get tragic.”

“Nice, mate, just threaten me right off,” Ron protested.

“History is on my side.” Scott stuffed nearly an entire scone in his mouth, and then turned to Harry. “When you’re up for it, I have something for you.”

***---~**~---***  

“Faster.”

Harry thumbed the lever and released the lock, his skin abraded and stinging from the textured surface of the metal. He reached out with his left hand and snapped open the breach, remembering at the last second to turn the barrels so the shells ejected out and to the right. He extracted the ammunition from his pocket and fumbled slightly when withdrawing, almost dropping one. By putting them between his fingers with the brass portion against his thumb, he could insert both simultaneously and seat them with his palm. It was a technique he had yet to master, and he grimaced when the top shell glanced off the rim before he managed to get it in. Finally, he shut the breach and pulled back the hammer.

“I said, ‘faster’,” Scott reminded.

Harry scowled but didn’t respond, raising the shotgun to his shoulder.

Scott reached over to the tray of china cups that Hermione had reluctantly conjured. “Quick acquisition,” he said, bouncing one in his hand. “Identify, aim, fire.”

So he kept saying, but, as the targets consisted solely of the identical tea cups, the ‘identify’ part of things hadn’t meant much. Harry’s ears rang, his shoulder ached and his arms were growing tired, but he refused to end the training session. Scott’s discovery in the attic had given Harry a new connection to his godfather, a sense of purpose he had needed and a loud, violent outlet for his darker emotions that he had needed even more.

“Just throw the bloody thing,” he told Scott irritably.

Scott shrugged. “Okay, but you need to keep your—”

In mid-sentence he hurled the cup down the long stone room, low and fast. Harry was startled by the unexpected action and reacted badly. He spun and fired without fully raising the weapon to his shoulder. Without proper bracing, the recoil sent him back a step and the shot went wide, cracking against the charmed mattresses they were using as a stop. The Imperturbable could only take so much; there was a flash, and feathers burst from a newly created hole. The cup shattered against the floor and the pieces skittered into the corner to join the rest.

Scott sighed and shook his head, gazing mournfully at the ruined mattress. “That mattress was two days from retirement.”

Harry lowered his weapon and rotated his aching arm. “We really shouldn’t be doing this inside.”

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go shoot skeet in the middle of London.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say that. But this isn’t safe, is it?”

“Not for your ears. Might do your upper body some good,” Scott said, punching Harry in the shoulder.

It was a friendly blow with no real weight behind it, and it was still like getting smacked with a cricket bat. Harry winced and rubbed his already sore appendage. “Ow. Are we done?”

“Yeah, we’re done.”

Harry turned to leave and was stopped when Scott caught him by the back of his shirt. He tugged out of the grip. “What now?”

“You’re not walking out of here with that thing loaded. Drop your ammo and clear it.”

Harry grudgingly ejected his remaining shell and pulled the trigger, resetting the hammer. “You’re always going about fully armed,” he accused.

“For which I am fully trained and certified. How much training do you have? Hmm, oh, that’s right, a little session in the woods and then tonight, so maybe an hour?”

“What if we get attacked?” Harry demanded. “What then?”

“I presume you still remember how to use magic. Or at least you’d better if we’re going to win this thing.” Scott grabbed the dusty box of shells and closed it. “Keep a few with you, just don’t leave them in the chamber.”

Scott had a point. Safety was important, and Harry’s other friends were uncomfortable enough around the gun as it was. Hermione was especially distrustful of the weapon, which was odd considering her Muggle origins… Or perhaps she was reacting more to the fact that it was in Harry’s hands. He supposed that was fair, if a little insulting.

He looked down at the shotgun, savouring the heft and imagining Sirius doing the same. There was a tinge of guilt in the pleasure, though. Had Sirius really threatened Kreacher with the gun? That had been the theory espoused by Scott, and, while Harry didn’t like the thought, it did make a lot of sense. The decrepit elf had not been seen again since his confrontation with Scott.

During a late lunch that day, Hermione leaned forward on the table and caught Scott’s attention. “Scott, I’d like to discuss my idea with you.”

Scott took another bite of his sandwich. “Shoot.”

“I remember you saying that you could identify certain ‘threads’ attached to the charm, and that it might be possible to separate individuals from it.”

“I also asked you if that would destroy the spell entirely.”

“Yes, and I honestly haven't the foggiest. But if we can’t monopolise the Secret Keeping again, this building will not be secure.” She frowned in thought. “There are still curses in place to prevent Snape from entering or telling anyone. He's not our only concern, though.”

“So you want me to cut him off,” Scott guessed.

“Actually, I was wondering if it might be easier to remove everyone who isn’t in this room?”

“Hang on, what about the family?” Ginny protested.

“They have their own Fidelius now, they’re perfectly safe,” Hermione assured her. “I don’t want to exclude them, either, but I’ve given this a lot of thought and we don’t know how many people have access. Between Snape and the entire Order, that’s too many Secret Keepers. Even Fletcher is a Secret Keeper now, and God only knows who he might have told…”

Harry had not forgotten Mundungus. His anger flared as he remembered the stolen suitcase and the mess upstairs. If there was profit to be made from being a Secret Keeper, then Mundungus would certainly capitalise on it.

“Dung’d probably sell to the highest bidder,” Ron scoffed.

Hermione concurred. “He’s proven untrustworthy. A clean sweep is our best option, leaving just us as Secret Keepers — save Scott and Kylie, of course.”

Harry glanced across the table to where Kylie was nibbling on a slice of cheese she had removed from her sandwich. By unspoken consensus, it seemed they had all stopped trying to keep anything from her. There didn’t seem to be much point to it, not after everything she had already witnessed. She probably understood very little of what was being said, but she kept her eyes on her food and asked no questions. He understood that particular brand of self-absorbed pain.

“Can it be done?” Hermione asked Scott.

“Yeah, probably. I mean, there’s only one way to find out, and I can’t guarantee the spell will remain intact,” Scott said around a mouthful of lettuce.

“I understand. If it comes to that, we’ll leave.” She looked around the table. “Well? What are your opinions on this? I’m not making this decision alone!”

“You were doing just fine, I thought,” Ron sniggered.

“Do it,” Harry said. If it worked, they would be safe. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t be sorry to leave.

“It sounds like the best plan,” Ginny said agreeably.

“Kylie, what about you?” Scott turned to the girl.

Kylie seemed to shrink when their eyes fixed on her. She slumped in her seat and shrugged her thin shoulders.

“Good enough for me. I’ll need time to parse this out. If you need me, I’ll be upstairs on that couch.” Scott pushed himself to his feet and belched loudly.

“Right. Don’t strain yourself,” Ginny snarked.

“Ah, Virginia… Your ignorance isn’t even amusing anymore.”

“You _know_ that's not my name, after all the stupid things you've called me,” she retorted. “What was it last? Ginnamon?”

Scott ignored her, traipsing up the stairs with Kylie at his heels. For his part, Harry was tempted to go back to the dining hall and fire off a few more rounds. Scott would insist on supervision, though, and Grimmauld Place did not offer much else in the way of recreation. Hermione retained nearly full control of all the reading material, which was likely for the best. Past experience indicated that having Harry and Ron participate directly in her literary research would only serve to slow her down.

Harry had already thoroughly explored the premises on previous occasions and had no wish to unearth any memories. He remained in his chair as the room emptied, and tried to stave off the dark thoughts which always came seeping in whenever the future loomed large in his mind. It was hard to believe it had only been a couple of days since the wedding; it felt like a lifetime. At least they hadn’t been idle, waiting for the fight to come to them. He wondered if, outnumbered as they were, there would always be too many fires to extinguish. Would they run themselves ragged fighting a war too large for them to win? He slumped over in his chair, brow furrowing.

His brooding was interrupted by his best defence against it. “I know that look,” Ginny said. She seated herself in his lap and wrapped her arms around him. “This should help.”

He returned the gesture. Her warmth had a way of thawing the fear that gripped his heart. “It always does.”

They sat like that for a long moment. Harry was just beginning to calculate how long he could remain in such a position before he lost circulation to his legs when Ginny began to speak again.

“I didn’t get you anything for your birthday,” she said guiltily.

She was still thinking about that? Harry barely cared that he’d even had a birthday. “It’s fine, Gin. I honestly don’t care, my birthday doesn’t matter now and didn’t matter much when it happened.”

“I care!” she told him. “And you should, too, if only for all the effort Mum and Lila made. She gave you a cake.”

That made Harry feel a bit bad. He hadn’t thought of it like that. “You’re right. It was a good cake, too…”

“…I did have something. Something in mind, I mean,” she said quietly, after a pause.

He debated whether he should express interest or point out the irrelevancy of the discussion. The first option was safer. “What was it? That is, if you want to tell me. I can always wait.”

“I almost didn’t bring it up, since I…” She stopped. It was strange seeing her so hesitant. “It was sort of an impulse.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about. And, really, he just wanted her to understand that it didn’t matter. He didn’t need any more presents. He was alive and he had her with him, which was more than he had expected. “Are you going to tell me? Or is it still a secret?” he asked, humouring her.

She looked up and met his gaze seriously. “I’m not a slag,” she said defensively, as if that were something he needed to hear. “I’m not.”

He was becoming confused. “Uh… I know that. I never thought you were. I _don’t_ think you are.”

“But, I thought, maybe, since this is so dangerous and if… I mean, if I wasn’t going to make it—”

He did not want to hear that. “You’re going to make it,” he said with firm desperation rooted in the impossibility of believing otherwise.

“But if I don’t—”

His teeth clenched. “You will.”

“Harry! I’m just saying that I was a bit scared and thinking about things, and then it was your birthday and, well, we haven’t been dating very long, but I feel like we’ve been together forever, and all I could offer was…” She looked away. “…Me.”

She was sitting in his lap, and they were entwined in a tight embrace. He wasn’t sure how he could be said to not have her at that moment. “So… What’s this, then? You aren’t really here?”

She groaned with exasperation. “Stop being thick, Harry! I thought we might… do _it.”_

She couldn’t be suggesting what he thought she was. He recalled his earlier thoughts, his self-recrimination at similar presumptions. “I must be missing something.”

“You aren’t, but you’re doing a good job at pretending,” she told him. She was blushing, he noted with shock. “Sex, Harry. I thought we could have sex. I didn’t want to die a virgin.”

Lust was instantly subsumed by terror. “You’re not going to die at all!”

“Probably not,” she sighed. “But that’s what I was thinking. I lost my nerve, after all that’s happened. I guess… Given the time to think about it, you know, I guess I wasn’t so ready.”

If he were direct with himself (which was difficult, considering the images her confession had sent spinning through his mind), he knew he wasn’t ready for that, either. He had decided as much earlier, and nothing had changed since. “It’s a big decision, or so I hear,” he said, trying to downplay it.

“You aren’t upset, are you?” She risked a glance up at him. “I know it’s a bit shit for me to bring it up and then tell you I changed my mind. Now I’m just a tease.”

He did sort of wish he’d never heard about her intentions or her change of heart, but it was too late for that. “It’s all right. And you’re not a tease or a slag or any of that other rubbish. You’re just being honest.”

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and sighed. “I’ll have to get you something else. Sorry.”

“It can’t possibly be as good,” he said in a rough approximation of a leer.

She wiggled on his lap in a self-satisfied sort of way and laughed. “Of course not. But it will have to do… for now.” She whispered the last part directly in his ear, making him shiver.

Harry didn’t expect anything from her; every new offering was accepted with gratitude. He was still amazed she let him touch her at all.

He hoped he could never take her for granted.


	10. Chapter 10

**10**

**Trace These Lines**

\--- 

 _“… for its continued role in deciding the patterns_  
 _of Kharadjai expansion within Solus. Similarly, the_  
 _shape is crucial to field agents operating within_  
 _other universes for the inverse of the same purpose._  
 _Rather than plotting the most stable locales for growth,_  
 _the shape is frequently utilized to find the center of_  
 _an already extant continuum. It can be misleading_  
 _to use the word 'center' in the same sense as it is also_  
 _technically inappropriate to use any terms of basic_  
 _spatial relations. The shape is at once infinite and_  
 _finely featured, a blank slate that reflects the geometry_  
 _and hues of existence. In doing so, it corresponds to_  
 _what we identify as landmarks both physical and_  
 _idealogical. Used in practical application, this_  
 _ephemeral 'center' often marks the Prime(s),_  
 _delineating them by corresponding to their actions_  
 _and presence._  
  
_Confusing the issue are the objects that may be_  
 _marked in a similar fashion. A more detailed_  
 _understanding of the shape can only be gained by_  
 _learning to differentiate the finer threads of change_  
 _and import that emanate with subtle distinction from_  
 _the sentient and the inanimate. Experienced field_  
 _agents will not confuse the two; but multiple_  
 _inanimates are often challenging to isolate, and_  
 _inscrutable of purpose.”_

 _—_ H. James Weller, _The Measureless Expanse_  

\---

The shape floated behind his senses like magnified plaid, a riot of woolly, contrasting colour. Each thread had a purpose — or, at least, implications. Most were meaningless to the observer. The information contained within the shape was the sum total of existence, ultimately too large and detailed to be fully deciphered. Only the tiniest fraction was ever apparent, and always relative to whomever was looking. Either the observer only understood what was relevant and familiar, or they only understood what the shape allowed them to understand, depending on who was asked. Scott had always been of the opinion that the truth fell where it usually did: somewhere in between. Reading the gossamer threads was a skill part experience, part luck, part innate ability and part inexplicable, savant-style instinct. The shape was a science, to be sure. But it was only partially understood at the best of times.

Scott's present universe of residence had never presented a best case scenario for understanding. Much of what he saw as he sat on the couch, staring at nothing, was a chaotic jumble without readable pattern. He could trace the usual lines to his Primes, and he knew the direction he would need to travel to find Lila. Kylie was also linked to him. He'd seen that before, and still found it somewhat surprising. She was not a Prime, and not central to events in any way he could discern.

He left the shape for a moment and studied Kylie where she slept on the couch cushions. Her strawberry-blonde hair fell over her face, and only the rise and fall of her chest attested to her still living. Scott felt a surge of protectiveness that he didn't try to suppress. Kylie was not a Prime, but she was a friend and an innocent in need. His mission was, at its most basic level, to preserve as much life as possible. Occasionally, that meant abandoning the few to save the many. But it was not the integrationist way to let the guiltless fall if it could be prevented. It didn't matter how peripheral she was or what his original intentions had been. Through his actions, he had taken responsibility for her.

Besides, it was impossible to say what part she might play in the shape of things.

Back in the shape, the twisting strands glittered in an entrancing arrangement. He refused to be distracted. The shape could be seductive in its forms, promising epiphany with just a few more minutes of observation. It encouraged obsession. Scott had been trained to hold the pace.

Grimmauld Place was laced with magic, draped with the lines of energy like creeping vines on a monolith. There were a bewildering variety of spells tied to all kinds of objects and structural features. He could not define the purpose of even a fraction of them, but he knew the Fidelius from the connections it held. Like some sparkling, diaphanous anemone, the tendrils stretched out from the anchoring building to wrap themselves around all who shared in it. Some were familiar signatures, some were not. Hermione's proposition had saved him from having to painstakingly pick out the individual threads, a task he might not have been capable of.

It took time to work it out. The constant motion of the shape made it difficult to construct well-defined actions. He paused before applying his calculations. If the worst should happen, and the charm was unable to sustain itself after such a drastic change of property, then they would all need to retreat back to the flat. At least Hermione's beaded handbag ensured they were always prepared for travel.

So he did it, reaching into the shape and wiping out all the distant chains, severing them from the source. He almost expected them to begin regenerating immediately — if the spell had a memory system, it would re-grow the missing connections and there would be no way to stop it without destroying it entirely. But the way it had become altered after Dumbledore's death suggested a level of malleability.

Sure enough, the links did not extend again. Scott waited a full hour before he was reasonably satisfied they wouldn't be coming back. He would recheck periodically for as long as necessary.

He didn't want Kylie to wake up on the couch by herself, so he carried her to her room and tucked her in bed. Given her recent levels of physical and emotional fatigue, her tendency to doze off was not surprising. If it persisted, then it could become a problem. The very fact that she was present to begin with was a concern. Everyone who had taken shelter at Grimmauld Place was part of what Scott considered the strike team, the combat element: except for Kylie. They needed someone else to hold down the fort. He had an idea or two about that.

He went to Hermione's room and knocked on the door, forgoing his usual method of barging in because he knew Ron was also inside. He didn't know what he might be interrupting. He wasn't especially concerned with the morality of the situation. He was not a parental figure to any of them (with the possible exception of Kylie); that ship had sailed when he had integrated as a fellow teen. In the unlikely event of his advice being requested, he'd do whatever he could. A few questions about contraception might be in order.

Ron opened the door. “Hey, mate. What's up?”

“Need to talk to Hermione,” Scott said. “She available?”

“Maybe if you talk real loud. She's reading.”

“I can talk real loud.”

Scott entered the room to find Hermione surrounded by books far larger than they probably needed to be to convey the information contained within. She looked up at him, not so involved as to miss his approach.

“Did you have any success?” she asked hopefully.

“It's done. Nobody outside the building is part of the charm.”

She clasped her hands together, beaming at him. “Brilliant! That's a great relief, to have a safe place.”

“I might be able to make it safer. I was thinking about Kylie and the food situation.” He flopped down on Hermione's bed and made himself comfortable. “We're going to need someone here when we're gone.”

“I was thinking about that, too. We can't keep going out in public for groceries forever, it's too dangerous.” She paused. “…But I can't see any of us willing to stay behind.”

“I was going to get an additional FA to stay here, another Kharadjai. Someone to watch the street, keep the place stocked and look after Kylie and whoever else.”

“Whoever else?”

“We can't assume Kylie will be the only refugee we harbour.”

Hermione appeared startled; that must not have been a possibility she had considered. “I suppose we can't, at that. And here I was worried we wouldn't be able to shelter ourselves…”

“Guerilla tactics will serve us well, but it's always good to be able to withdraw to a solid position.” Scott closed his eyes and thought about his options again, only one of which he liked. “It's something I'll have to work on. What were you doing?”

“Reading in circles,” Ron said. “She keeps asking me for the same books. Which is fine, really. I already feel a bit bulkier about the shoulders.”

Hermione sighed and picked up a particularly weighty volume. “He's not wrong. I had been researching Horcrux creation on the chance I might learn something about their destruction. That went nowhere, so I thought I might look into thermal emissions, as Harry suggested. I found an old spell they use in metalworking to identify thin spots in cauldrons holding heated material, then that led me to another spell that shows hot or cold spots in pipes to reveal leaks; but, that actually causes the liquid itself to change colour according to temperature. If I could find some way to marry the concept to altered vision, perhaps with charmed goggles, or—”

“Take a breath,” Scott recommended.

She deflated. “Yes, well. It's quite fascinating.”

“I know. I just don't want you to pass out.”

“Your concern is very touching,” she said acerbically.

Ron had been shifting impatiently from side to side, clearly eager for Scott to leave so he could have Hermione to himself. That was too bad. Scott had one more point of discussion.

“Speaking of touching,” he drawled, “is there some kind of contraceptive spell?”

Hermione regarded him warily. “I don't see how that's relevant.”

“Oh, but you do. You really do.”

“What's it matter to you?” Ron asked pugnaciously. Perhaps he had misinterpreted the direction of the question, as Scott had been the one asking. Scott wasn't asking for himself.

“It matters to _you_ ,” Scott said pointedly. “We can't wait nine months between Horcruxes.”

“There is such a spell, Scott, and honestly I'm insulted you should think we'd have opportunity to use it,” Hermione said stiffly, chin up.

“Right, how silly of me. A bunch of physically mature teenagers, all recently of age, in a massively stressful life or death situation with no future guarantees, no parental supervision and no comfort save each other? You'll never be tempted to do more than hold hands, I'm _sure_ ,” Scott said with what he felt was exquisite sarcasm.

“Come off it, I wouldn't… I mean, I— not just like…” Ron struggled, trying to walk a line he obviously hadn't realised was so thin. “She deserves better, I… I owe Hermione more than that!”

“Yeah, it's called 'foreplay'.”

Hermione leapt up from her place on the floor and seized Scott's arm, trying to tug his dead weight off her bed. “Out!”

“I am being a responsible adult and responsibly reminding you to remember that spell before you run out of experimentation that doesn't involve penetration—” Scott said mildly, allowing himself to be pulled towards the door.

_“Out!”_

The door slammed behind him, leaving him standing back out in the dim hallway. He supposed he might have been more tactful in his broaching the subject of preventing teenage pregnancy. But 'tactful' wasn't really his style when he could avoid it, and he was pretty sure the message had been received. The warning would transcend the method of delivery.

The door to Harry and Ginny's room was also closed. That was more concerning than Hermione and Ron's similar state, because Ginny had been very forward in her affections. Scott had a notion as to why, and thus far Harry had demonstrated his typical reluctance in such matters. Still, he could only hold out so long. Scott had always maintained a necessary personal detachment when it came to the sexuality of his female Primes, but he was not so distanced that he didn't understand Ginny's appeal. However, he wasn't at all certain of her true intentions. There were layers at work. He wasn't the only one trying to bypass Harry's self-destructive tendencies.

A friendly reminder remained in order. He knocked on the door and frowned at the lack of immediate response. He knocked again.

“…Who is it?” Harry called out with reluctance. His voice was rough with sleep; it sounded like Scott had woken him up again.

“Scott. We need to talk.”

“Can it wait?”

Scott paused. What had they been up to? When in doubt, be direct. “Are you guys having sex?”

“No!” came Harry's much more alert reply, followed by a “Sod off!” from Ginny.

“Do you know the contraceptive spell? I asked Hermione and she said there's a spell for that.”

“We aren't having sex!” Harry yelled in exasperation.

“You mean not yet. Do you know the spell or not?”

“Yes!” Ginny snapped.

“Good. Then be careful. Try using your hands, first.”

“Oh, God, please go away,” Harry groaned.

Scott obliged, striding off confident that his responsibility to his Primes was fulfilled. It wasn't the usual kind of guidance he offered, but integrationists had to be flexible. And, so long he was on the subject of flexibility, he had some calls to make.

***---~**~---*** 

“Ah, the mystery box,” Scott said with relish, dropping his magical strongbox on the table with a considerable clatter.

“Don't drop it like that! It might be fragile,” Hermione scolded.

“It's a magical metal box. I'm sure it's fine.”

Hermione sighed and placed a hand on his arm. “I know, but please be careful. Magic isn't as durable as you might think.”

“Sorry. I think a part of me wanted to see if it would bounce.”

“What was the clue for this?” Ginny asked.

“Something about socks, wasn't it,” Ron recalled.

“'Sock drawer',” Harry murmured.

“Distressingly cryptic,” Hermione said.

“Not really. He left a clue he knew I would understand, and only me. Just like I did for him,” Scott mused.

“I'm glad you could clear that up,” Ron said.

“You just had to be there.” Scott lifted the box in his hands and recited:

 _This is a password,_  
A past written sign.  
The outside is yours,  
And the inside is mine.  
Open it with your hands,  
Memorise with your mind.  
Trust not to your senses,  
Instead cleave to this rhyme—  
Fear not the fighting,  
Or the cliffs yet to climb.  
The journey is dangerous,  
But our real problem is Time.

There was a loud, hollow clank and one of the identical box sides popped out of place. Scott turned it over so that it was right-side up, having gained a recognisable lid; when he flipped it open everyone instinctively leaned back.

He looked down into the strongbox. “It's bigger on the inside, for sure,” he said, his voice echoing hollowly. “Not by a whole lot, though.” He reached in.

He pulled out a long shape wrapped in rough, lumpy green cloth. It turned out to be a sort of bag; after locating the drawstrings, he extracted the object.

In his hand he held a silver sword studded with glittering rubies.

Harry's jaw dropped. “The Sword of Gryffindor!”

Ron was equally awestruck. “No way…” he breathed.

“But… the Ministry said they'd confiscated it!” Hermione stood and hurried around the table for a closer look.

“There's not more than one, is there?” Ginny wondered.

“No, the historical record is clear on that much.” Hermione placed her fingertips on the handle of the weapon. “Dumbledore must have given the Ministry a fake… That's the only explanation I can think of.”

“Unless this is the fake,” Scott said.

She looked at him sharply. “Do you think it is?”

“No…” Scott said slowly, testing the balance of the blade. “It's crawling with magic. And I don't know why he would give us the fake one.”

“Hey, there's a note pinned there,” Ginny said, pointing to the discarded bag.

Ron retrieved the note, holding it up to the light. “'Mr Kharan',” he read. “'I regret the premature ending of our mutually beneficial alliance. But, you know better than most that there are events beyond our control. I also regret the necessity of using you in this fashion to circumvent the Ministry, but you understand necessity, as well. I suspect your understanding of the situation surpassed mine in at least a few undefined ways, though there are many more facets you could not have known. No doubt you have discovered several of them by now. I know whatever armaments I might have offered would be of little use to you — you work within your strengths, as you should. Therefore, I trust that you will see this sword placed in the proper hands.'”

There was a moment of silence as they all absorbed the words of the deceased Headmaster. “…Indeed,” Scott said after those seconds of contemplation. He flipped the sword in his hand and extended it hilt first towards Harry.

He didn't take it right away. “I'd bet a roomful of Galleons you know how to use that better than me.”

“I have my own sharp instruments. This one is yours.”

Harry took the sword and set it on the table, rocking it back and forth and watching the play of light on the blade. “I guess I won't actually be fighting with it…”

“Sure, stay positive.”

“This neatly resolves one of our most pressing issues,” Hermione happily declared.

“Get the locket and let's smash it!” Ginny said eagerly, excited at the prospect of progress.

Ron was of the same mind. “This is what we've been waiting for, right? We should kill the one we've got before we find another.”

Hermione nodded. “I do think we shouldn't delay. Horcruxes have a negative effect on those around them, according to what I've read. That's not surprising, considering what little I know of their creation. The handbag may be dampening the effect, I'm not sure…”

“The diary was alive, sort of,” Ginny said with haunted eyes. “It might not do anything until we try to kill it.”

“Good to know,” Scott said, drawing his right handgun and checking the magazine.

“It will be your other talents which will prove more useful if it projects any dangerous magic,” Hermione said, eyeing the weapon.

Scott didn't put the gun away. “That's one possibility.”

A few minutes later, they were all staring at the innocuous-looking locket that Hermione had placed on the table. For his part, Harry felt the same way about it that he always had: it seemed like a prize not worth its cost.

“…Horcruxes must be something different, because I am getting nothing from this thing,” Scott said.

“What, nothing at all? Not even just magic?” Harry said.

Scott took the locket in his hand and squeezed it, turning it over in his fingers. “No. It's just a locket.”

Harry found that worrying. He had assumed Scott's abilities would help them identify the Horcruxes. “We'll see,” he said, hefting the sword. “Everyone stand back!”

“Wait!” Hermione exclaimed. She hurried off and dug through one of the cupboards, returning with a cutting board. “No need to damage the table,” she said, placing it beneath the locket.

“Watch, now the damn thing will explode,” Ron predicted.

Harry raised the sword over his head and brought it down with all his strength. The blade sheared through the locket with a metallic shriek, sending the two halves spinning as the sword cut deep into the board. They had all tensed when the blade met the silver, but there was nothing. The halves clattered to a stop, and silence returned.

Ginny wrinkled her nose. “That's it?”

“It was rather anticlimactic, wasn't it?” Hermione said.

Ron cautiously kicked a half that had landed near him; it skittered away without result. “This is weird, mate. I mean, I didn't _want_ it to explode, but… All right, I guess I sort of did.”

“Kylie, don't touch that,” Scott said when the girl approached the other half apprehensively. “Something isn't right. Maybe the potion was the primary protection, but you've ascribed semi-sapient qualities to the diary you killed.”

“Perhaps it was sleeping,” Ginny suggested, relief crossing her features.

Scott bent down to examine the locket halves. He picked up the half that Ron had kicked and stuck his finger inside of it. Finding nothing of interest, he dropped it on the table and went to retrieve the other. Harry grabbed it, and after a quick inspection he had to admit that it really did seem ordinary. The sheared edges were shiny compared to the rest of the tarnished surface, revealing its age.

“It shouldn't matter if it was inert,” Hermione was saying. “The destruction of a soul is powerful, violent magic. There should have been some kind of reaction.”

“Cut it again, Harry, maybe it's not really dead,” Ron said.

Scott broke into the conversation with a tone of mixed amusement and resignation. “This clears up a few things.” He held up a creased note that he had apparently extracted from the other locket half.

Without further comment, he handed it to Harry, who read:

 _To the Dark Lord_  
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.  
R.A.B.

At first, Harry didn't understand. It didn't seem possible that he had never possessed a real Horcrux. He read it again, then again. There was little to interpret. The note was clear and concise. What it meant for the future was anything but. He felt as if he had climbed a mountain, only to fall back down.

The rage — old, familiar and simmering — began to set in, a slightly better alternative to despair. Had it all been for nothing? All the pain, fear and sacrifice for a fucking _note?_ Dumbledore had given his life for _this?_ It was like some horrible joke. Better luck next time, Potter, the universe seemed to say. His efforts were utterly futile. Nothing he did ever made a damn bit of difference.

“Harry…? What is it?” Ginny asked, looking alarmed at whatever she saw on his face.

“The princess is in another castle,” Scott said laconically.

And then Harry had to get out of that room before he said or did something stupid (and Scott's sardonic amusement at the turn of events was infuriating beyond measure). He hurled the note down on the table and stormed upstairs, ignoring the confused cries that followed him. He had to be alone. He had to suppress the aching knot of anger and panic and unbearable frustration before he would be of any use to anyone.

He started to enter the room he had shared with Ron out of habit, too caught in his maelstrom of emotions to pay attention. Hermione's Imperturbable reminded him, painfully, of the reasons for not going in there. He withdrew his aching hand from the invisible field and lashed out with his foot at the nearest wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster. The act did nothing to calm him.

The worst part of the discovery was that Dumbledore had died to retrieve a worthless fake; nearly as terrible was the realisation that they were right back at the beginning, surviving without advancing. It wasn't enough to just stay alive whilst being hunted. They had to find victories if they were ever going to win.

Now one of the keys to victory was gone, taken by an unknown party who may or may not have destroyed it. And they could not afford to assume. The idea of facing Voldemort without knowing for certain that there were no Horcruxes left… Even if they won, it would only be a matter of time until the cycle started again. Harry wanted finality, one way or the other. At least if he died, he wouldn't have to deal with another Prophecy.

He made his way to the room he shared with Ginny, trying not to dwell on his last thought. Grimmauld Place encouraged such musings; the building carried a heavy air, an oppressive weight. The dim hallways and dark décor always made Harry feel as if he were underground, traversing some ancient subterranean lair. He remembered his brief sojourn to the Slytherin common room. Something about Dark magic seemed to shun the sunlight in a very classical fashion. When he reached his room, he made sure to light it as much as possible. It didn't help much. Light never seemed to reach far in Grimmauld Place. Everything was permanently in shadow, shrouded by gloom.

He collapsed on his bed and ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He knew he shouldn't have run like that. He was supposed to be part of a team. But the thoughts of Dumbledore dying in vain had overwhelmed him. It was so difficult to accept that the Headmaster's last, great effort had been for nothing.

He was sure that Hermione would be pulling herself and everyone else back together to work on the next step soon. She was often implacable in her logic. Harry sighed, trying to release some of his tension and regain control. The fight wasn't over. The locket was a disappointment and a setback but it was _not_ the end. As long as they were all still alive, Riddle would be resisted.

He tried not to think about the likelihood that they wouldn't be living much longer.

***---~**~---*** 

Hermione knew she should probably go to bed, but her mind was moving too quickly for sleep.

The discovery that the locket was a fake had been a major disappointment, and had left them all discouraged (save for Scott — Hermione suspected that whatever let down he might have experienced was offset by smug satisfaction: his instincts had been correct). When Harry had left, not even Ginny followed him. There was a general numbness that set in with the realisation that they had been further behind in the Horcrux hunt than they had known. They were left with nothing but vague clues and scant ideas as to following them.

Ideas were usually Hermione's province, and she was feeling the pressure. Not for the first time, she wished the others shared her intellectual proclivities. It was nice to be relied upon, but sometimes she felt isolated in her research, expected to deliver solutions simply because she had in the past. She herself was largely to blame for that perception. She had consistently taken command of such tasks, and (if she were to be honest), occasionally belittled the academic gifts of her friends, unintentionally and otherwise.

She was the clever one. Everybody said so. Prior to Hogwarts, that was _all_ she had been. Meeting Ron and Harry had allowed her to grow and change and occasionally take on other roles. Being a friend, a fighter; now, a girlfriend.

A girlfriend… That was a new title. She felt her heart skip at the concept. She thought it lucky that Ron was as inexperienced as she, since she doubted she had been an ideal significant other. The whirlwind of events they were caught in demanded the majority of her attention. As they had established a place of safety, perhaps she could spend more time with Ron, the way Harry and Ginny had been together more.

Of course, Harry and Ginny had also been sharing a room. Hermione bit her lower lip nervously, considering that. It hadn't been so long ago that she would have objected to the arrangement on moral grounds, but, now… Now, whatever comfort could be found in the shadow of evil seemed a small transgression, indeed. Even Scott, who was at least nominally the adult in their party, had done no more than inquire as to whether they all knew the contraceptive spell (which she really ought to have expected; and, in regard to sexual discourse, it _had_ been responsible of him, despite his inconsiderate manner). It all left her to wonder if by clinging to irrelevant modes of propriety she was only depriving herself. Who was she seeking to impress with her virtue? Mrs Weasley, no longer present? The parents who didn't even remember her? There were lines and then there were _lines_ , and many had faded beneath greater issues. Nothing said she had to have _intercourse_ with Ron… She wouldn't mind being held, though.

She worried at her lip some more, thinking of how to best broach the subject with him. She was having difficulty conceiving of any method that wouldn't make her sound like a 'scarlet woman', as Ron had so humorously put it once. Ginny didn't seem to have that problem. But Ginny had been quite forward with Harry, and it did seem to be working. Harry had a complicated tangle of intimacy issues bestowed on him by his horrible relatives. Perhaps Ginny knew she would never get anywhere if she left things up to him.

Ron didn't have the same problems, but he did have a strong sense of inadequacy ensured by his accomplished older brothers, and a close friendship with a world-famous wizarding hero. It had come between him and Hermione before. Sharing a room might go a ways towards ameliorating that, making it totally clear that she wanted to be with him. They'd been so busy that he could probably use a reminder.

What would he think, though, at the suggestion? What would he _expect?_ She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, imagining them bared to his gaze and feeling the heat flood her face. She didn't think she could handle that, not yet. Just the idea of being next to Ron in a bed, draped in his limbs, his presence large and warm and so intrinsically male… It all left her suffused with a heady combination of comfort, desire and fear. The concept of pressing herself against him in such a position, feeling the contours of his chest and stomach and perhaps even the clearest sign of whatever interest she could stir in him… It was odd how apprehension and arousal were not mutually exclusive.

The precise instant she became thankful that she was alone was, predictably, right when Scott came strolling in. He slouched in the chair across the table and tented his fingers, assessing her. She lifted her chin defiantly, and fought against her lingering blush.

“Everyone else is in bed, or at least in their rooms,” he said. “I assume you're deep in thought.”

“Yes,” she replied, volunteering nothing.

“Judging from your flush, pupils, and the way you're poking against your shirt, I can guess what you were thinking about.”

She bit the inside of her cheek and blushed further, trying to tug her shirt out a bit without making it obvious. “Then you can keep that guess to yourself!”

He nodded. “And you? Will you be sharing with anyone?”

She sighed and looked away. “…I haven't decided yet.”

“Another hard decision.”

“Well, this one isn't quite so earthshaking as some others.”

“That depends how close you are to it. You are very close, and you might be taking things _a lot_ closer.”

She felt like she should be offended. “Perhaps I'm not that kind of girl.”

“I think you could be, which is part of what you find so disconcerting.”

She glared at him. “You really think you know everything, don't you. You think you've got us all so perfectly charted.”

“Never. But I do think I'm right about this.”

“What does it matter to you?” she demanded. “Ron and I are already together, your job is done. Further interest at this point is perverted; are you trying to breed us?”

He leaned forward on the table with exaggerated interest. “No, but since you've advanced such an intriguing idea…”

“You're vile,” she sighed.

“And you're weird. I've got a teenager with a boyfriend in a safe house sans parental restrictions, and she's getting on to me for not being more repressive.”

“You're supposed to be!”

“I'm supposed to be your friend and ally, not your dad. I'm here to protect and advise you, and to that end I already asked about safe sex. I was responsible. What else am I supposed to do? Confine you to separate rooms? Watch you twenty-four hours a day? Nobody here is going to be discouraged from sex by my non-existent authority. I came to you at Hogwarts as an equal. If you guys decide to start fucking each other, I can't stop it.”

She didn't really know how to cope with the idea of her and Ron… doing that. “I see your point. But you're still an example for Kylie.”

He spread his hands. “And who am I sleeping with? Anybody who tells you they've taken this ride is lying.”

“That's good to know, seeing as you've spent most of your time surrounded by girls far younger than yourself. Sarah Hilman from Hufflepuff was telling anyone who would listen for awhile that you… Well, it's personal.”

He looked at her disbelievingly. “What? That I did _what?_ ”

“I'm not repeating it!”

“Well, I don't even know who that is, goddammit!”

“Oh, don't have a fit. Nobody smart believed her.”

“That leaves a lot of people who did.”

“That's a rather dim view of the Hogwarts population… if fairly accurate,” she conceded. “I don't think you need to worry about gossipy Hufflepuffs at this point.”

“Neither do you.”

“Steer me not towards temptation,” she said dryly.

“My hands are off the wheel,” he said. “It's your morals, your body, your love. I was merely curious as to the direction of your musings.”

“You'll have to stay curious. I'm not rushing into anything.”

“True to form,” he said without disapprobation.

“Do you think I'm too careful?” she asked suddenly, voicing an old fear. “Maybe all I do is hold everyone back…”

“They need it. Harry is impetuous enough for all of you.”

“But I— I wonder sometimes if I've ruined things for them, on occasion, and perhaps I'm not… Perhaps I can't be as passionate as Ron needs, and—”

He interrupted her. “Every fire needs a wet blanket? It's not that simple. Friendship is about balance, especially yours. Harry is an effective loose cannon, but he has to get to where he's going first. As for Ron, I think he's decided what he needs. And he's more likely to be worried that you don't need him.”

“But I do!”

“I suggest you tell him that. And why.” Scott stood up and stretched. “Also, go to sleep. We have a locket to find all over again.”

Hermione's thoughts immediately switched gears. She made her way up to her room, again pondering the mystery of the locket. She might have saved it for later, as she was unlikely to make any progress without further information, but there was something about the whole mess… The initials R.A.B. seemed familiar, she felt as though she had seen them before, and recently. Even more oddly, she thought of them as being connected to Scott. But that didn't make sense. He didn't know much about magic (could barely use it), and R.A.B., whoever they were, would likely be found in historical tomes if they had defied Riddle in the last war. Although, perhaps not. The act had obviously gone unnoticed.

She couldn't imagine Scott ever mentioning such a person. The mental connection had to come from somewhere else, or be an aberration. If he knew who R.A.B. was he would have said something when he had read the note.

And yet, the feeling persisted.

She was standing outside her door, mere feet away from the comfort of bed, when she doubled back to find Scott and put the question to him before it faded. She reached the stairwell and then realised that she didn't know what room he was staying in, if any. He had been remarkably difficult to keep track of, considering he had been confined to the same building as the rest of them. Or, he supposedly was. She wouldn't have been surprised if he were wandering the nearby streets in search of threats.

Drat. The last thing she wanted was to search for him again. Scott's frequent disappearances at Hogwarts had carried over to Grimmauld Place.

Well… If he weren't outside, he had to be in _one_ of the rooms. Checking each bedroom in turn would be simple enough. There were three bedrooms he definitely wouldn't be in, as they were occupied or sealed off, so she skipped those. She made sure to check in on Kylie and see if the girl were sleeping soundly. She was, but Scott was not keeping vigil in the padded chair by the window. Nor was he in the hallway outside, as he had been previously.

 _I should have never let him wander off_ , Hermione thought as she ascended the last flight of stairs before the attic. The door to Sirius' old room was ajar, so she pushed it open.

Scott was slumped on the foot of the bed, eyes closed. He was still fully dressed and armed, and didn't have the appearance of intending to stay. She frowned down at him, concerned. When was the last time he had slept? She didn't know how hard he was pushing himself, or how far he could. The source and limits of his stamina remained a mystery (and he probably preferred it that way). Whatever the case, the stream of low light from the partially opened door highlighted the dark circles beneath his eyes.

She was just wondering if she ought to leave him be when he spoke. “I'm not staying. Harry wouldn't want me in here.”

“Harry wouldn't begrudge you a bed to sleep in,” she said.

“He can allow me a nap. I'll be up in a minute.”

“Why don't you just stay here for the night?” she suggested.

He took a long breath through his nose. “I don't trust the charm like you do. And I don't know if the threads I cut are going to re-grow, I need to check on them now and then.”

“I understand the second point, but why don't you trust the charm? It's never failed before.”

“That you know of. No defence is perfect.”

“Granted.” She glanced around the poorly illuminated room; she could see how Sirius' taste in décor would appeal to Scott for its Muggle roots, if nothing else. “I've had a sudden thought that I can't seem to disregard.”

That grabbed his attention, as she thought it might. He put a great deal of stock in sudden thoughts. He sat up. “What's that?”

“When you saw the note was signed 'R.A.B.', that didn't mean anything to you at all?

“No. Why? Do you think I'm forgetting something?”

“Not precisely. I seem to have associated you with those initials, and I can't understand why.”

“Hmm.” Scott lay back down and closed his eyes again. “Well, I can tell you that I didn't take the original locket.”

She rolled her eyes. He could at least _try_ to help her. “Obviously. The initials would have been S… Whatever your middle name is, K.”

“I don't have one.”

“You don't…” She stopped herself, not allowing her curiosity to distract her. “Anyway, you have no thoughts on this at all?”

He shrugged, an odd expression for his horizontal position. “Not this time. Ask me again later. The shape might be accommodating, though I doubt it. Maybe something will come to me.”

She sighed and shook her head. “Only if you get some sleep. Please just stay here tonight, you need to rest.”

“Kylie—”

“Can handle your absence for a bit. I'll make sure she doesn't have any problems.”

Scott grunted in response, neither a yes or a no. She turned to leave when he stopped her. “Hermione?”

“Yes?”

“I had another question for our earlier conversation. It's personal.”

“Of course it is.”

He rocked his shoulders, settling deeper into the mattress. “Why didn't you ever get together with Harry? It seems like the opportunity was there.”

She had expected another interrogative concerning Ron, not a new and even more difficult area of inquiry. “You're right, that is personal.”

“It's not _that_ personal.”

She sighed. “I didn't feel that way for him. Why would that surprise you? You're the one who pushed Ron and I together. You've always been insistent on coupling according to the grand design of your shape.”

“The shape allows for many permutations. I try to steer you towards the best path, but that's a very subjective goal.”

“Hence my continued difficulty accepting your tampering. Was there anything else?” she said curtly.

“Specifics, if you would humour me. Wasn't there ever a point where you thought Harry was bound to be with you? Didn't your closeness ever foster desire?”

“I was quite young when I met Harry, and, honestly, puberty pushed me towards Ron.” She cast a furtive glance towards the door. “Don't you dare tell him I said this, but I've never found Harry… especially attractive. To me!” she hastened to add. “I can understand his appeal to other girls, but, he's a bit short and thin, and… Well. I've never really thought of myself as the kind of girl who has a 'type', but…”

“Big, brawny and red,” Scott assessed.

She blushed, but couldn't exactly argue. “I suppose so.”

“Did you feel like you went against expectations?”

She didn't know if Scott were digging for anything in particular, or if a little invasive psychology before bedtime helped him sleep. “I think a lot of people expected us to be a couple in the first three years… And maybe even after, I'm not sure. I'd thought at the time I was being rather blatant in my attempts to get Ron's attention, around the Yule Ball in particular.”

“Just took you a little longer to reel him in.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just a little.”

“Think of how Ginny feels. At least Ron knew you existed.”

“Part of me,” Hermione corrected. “The part that was a good mate and technically female.”

Scott took so long to answer that she started to wonder if he had fallen asleep. “…There's some resentment there,” he mumbled. “Don't sit on it. Talk it out.”

“Easy for you to say,” she grumbled.

“It is, yeah.”

She left him, her head no less stuffed with whirling questions than it had been when she had found him. Scott had a long history of leaving her with more questions than answers, but this time he had provided no answers at all. Not entirely his fault, to be sure, but why he had felt it was the perfect time to begin some impromptu amateur therapy…

She shut the door behind her, hoping he would stay put and rest. In the motion of turning, she glanced across the hallway at the door opposite of Sirius'. That was when the plaque mounted there caught her eye. It solved the mystery of why she had thought of Scott to begin with, for it had been with him that she had seen it before it had been worthy of notice:

**_Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black_ **

***---~**~---***

The next day put them on the path to the real locket, but it didn't take long for it to become apparent just how twisting that road was.

Harry had enthusiastically joined in the ransacking of Regulus' room. The ostentatious amount of Slytherin-themed ornamentation made it feel like they were destroying something belonging to the enemy, even though that enemy was long dead (and had perhaps been an ally). They had torn it apart, searching every nook and cranny for even the slightest clue. None of them had been hopeful enough to believe they would find the locket itself so easily. Scott had taken charge of the search in a rigidly methodical fashion; he had obviously done that sort of thing before. But, despite such direction, they had found nothing.

By noon, all they were left with was the name.

They gathered in the kitchen once again, sitting in glum silence. The only sound came from Kylie, of all people, as she crunched her way through an apple — apparently she didn't mind making noise if there was food involved.

“All right,” Hermione said, her face smudged with dust. “We know a bit about Regulus Black from what we just went through and what Harry's told us. So let's try to narrow things down, at least somewhat.”

Harry stared at the tabletop, doing his best to contain his frustrations. “Go on.”

“I doubt that R.A.B. ever destroyed the locket. We know first hand how difficult it is; there's not much out there which will do the trick. Sirius said that Riddle killed Regulus, correct, Harry?”

“Yeah. He said that Regulus tried to back out of being a Death Eater.”

“Not the best severance package,” Scott murmured.

“Retirement plan: six feet of dirt and a decently comfortable coffin,” Ron quipped.

“Burial at your own expense.”

Hermione pondered the information. “It almost had to be unrelated… Riddle never discovered that the locket was missing from the cave. Regulus may have rebelled, but he kept that secret.”

“For all the good it does us,” Ginny said. “He just made things even harder!”

Hermione sighed. “At least he meant well.”

Harry reached under his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “Comforting, that.”

“He must have stored it somewhere. If he knew anything about Horcruxes, then he must have known better than to keep it in his own room. He would have put it somewhere safe.”

“Gringotts?” Ron said.

“I hope not, I really do. We would have a serious problem.”

“What about inheritance? Anything that this R.A.B. guy had should be Sirius', and anything of Sirius' is now Harry's,” Scott said.

“Even if it _is_ in my vault, I can't get to it,” Harry said.

“Let's try to establish whether or not it was ever here before we worry about getting into Gringotts,” Hermione said sagely.

Scott made a noise of concurrence. He rocked his chair back onto two legs and stared at the ceiling. “Hiding something important means either putting it somewhere it would never be found, or placing it in such an environment that, even if it was found, it would be unremarkable.”

Harry looked at him. “So, if you were hiding the locket, where would you put it?”

“Around here… In the attic. Minimal foot traffic, maximum mess. It would be just another trinket on the crap pile, if anyone bothered to look.”

“If we're going to search, we might as well take it from the top.” Hermione rose from her chair and moved purposefully towards the stairs. “Besides, we can clean as we go!”

“Oh, frabjous day,” Scott muttered.

“Do you think you could give me some hand-to-hand training? Like, right now?” Ron asked as he followed Scott upstairs. “Getting my arms broken would be _really_ instructive.”

“But then who would break my arms?”

The attic was intolerably dusty. Hermione and Scott had been the only two who'd known what to expect inside. The ceiling was not as high as Harry had thought, and it sloped downwards in a triangular shape, forcing everyone to hunch if they walked close to the walls. The peaked nature of the roof was extremely odd, considering that from the outside the building was square. It was like architecture from an entirely different house.

“Start in the corners, work your way towards the middle,” Scott instructed. “I'll man the perimeter.”

“I can't get to the corner,” Ginny complained. She was trying to squeeze between two lumpy objects covered in sheets without success.

“Let's get rid of these sheets and all this dust first, that will make things easier,” Hermione said.

The sheets were soon piled outside the worn white door, and a liberal usage of cleaning spells took care of the majority of dust. The process had mostly revealed a great deal of old furniture, some of it clearly expensive. Whilst the others cleaned, Harry dug through the standing cabinet that Scott had led him to, setting aside the things which had once belonged to Sirius that he wanted to keep or examine further. He even found another old box of shells in a lower drawer.

The search went on for a time without any useful discoveries. Nothing related to Horcruxes or even Dark magic turned up. The attic was full of the kind of useless household amenities that built up in a residence. It seemed that the Blacks kept their more dangerous artefacts closer at hand.

It was Ron who found the old velvet box underneath a discarded mound of other boxes. It was empty, but the white silk lining was formed into a perfect impression of the locket. They gathered around to examine it.

“Too bad R.A.B. didn't use this for the real locket,” Ron said.

Ginny frowned and held out her hand. “Can I see that?” Ron handed her the box and she put it next to the light from her wand. “I didn't see the locket up close, but this shape… It looks familiar, somehow, I don't think that Mum has anything like it…”

“Then how could it be familiar? It's been sitting in goop for as long as you've been alive,” Scott said, but his tone wasn't mocking.

“I don't know. I thought we threw something like this away, though, the last time we cleaned. I remember it was chucked with the rest of… the rubbish…” She stopped and her eyes widened.

There was a brief moment of inactivity as her words sunk in. Like a lightning bolt, the memory of the locket in the drawing room shot through Harry's mind. The strange, silver and green locket that nobody could open. Tossed with the rest of the rubbish…

“Oh, fuck,” Harry said in a dead voice.

Even Hermione did not reprimand him. If the real locket had been discarded, thrown into a bin and forgotten, then it would be hidden more completely than Riddle had ever intended. It would be buried somewhere beneath mountains of refuse. They could never find it.

“Now, hold on a minute,” Scott said sceptically. “You're thinking that the Horcrux got thrown away?”

“I know it did. I remember there was a whole box of rubbish that Mum wanted gone,” Ginny said.

“So… you guys just throw magical artefacts out with the rest of your shit? Isn't that illegal? How is the Statute of Secrecy even possible if every landfill is littered with all your cursed junk?”

Hermione immediately brightened. “He's right. Normal rubbish can be put out with the bins, and some of the things here must have been, but magical items have to be properly disposed of. There's a whole process for it at the Ministry — your father would have been involved in some of it, when it concerned Muggle objects,” she said to Ron and Ginny.

“Mum wanted that stuff out of sight, anything Dark or suspicious,” Ginny supplied. “I don't think she ever went to the Ministry.”

“I'll bet she boxed it up, our attic is full of boxes,” Ron said.

Hermione raised her wand and swept the light around the room. “Right! Finish up in here, and then we'll check every cupboard.”

“Mum never came up here, we should go check the cupboards now,” Ginny said impatiently.

Hermione appeared uncomfortable with that plan — probably not happy with leaving a job half done — but she acquiesced. “All right. We know a lot of those things came from the drawing room, so let's start there.”

The drawing room was more bare than Harry remembered, no doubt the work of Mundungus. He approached the shelf where the Horcrux had once sat, just another bauble in a house full of them. If he looked closely enough, he could almost see the dusty outline. How had the locket come to be on that shelf? It seemed like a poor hiding place for an object of such danger. He couldn't believe he had held it in his hands, not so long ago. It had done nothing to him. It must have known it was in no danger. The realisation that the Horcruxes were smart enough to understand when they were discovered was a sobering one. The slivers of Riddle's soul carried his evil intellect with them.

“Harry, look at this,” Ginny called.

He left his contemplation of the empty shelves and joined his friends at the cupboard in the far corner. The dusty carpet inside had clear footprints pressed into it. Amidst the clutter there was an empty box on its side.

“Not our footprints, obviously,” Ginny said quietly.

Everyone was looking at him. No doubt they were preparing for the effusion of rage that would ensue once he drew the same conclusion as the rest of them. And he already had. Mundungus Fletcher had beaten them to the Horcrux, just as R.A.B. had before. Harry tightened his fists until they shook, but managed to keep himself together. He felt more than a little embarrassed that everyone so clearly expected him to explode.

“Fletcher took it, then,” he said in as calm a voice as he could muster. It probably didn't work so well emerging from clenched teeth.

“That fucking twat!” Ron burst out.

“Ron!” Hermione gasped.

“He is!” Ron said unapologetically. “Now what? It could be anywhere!”

“Mundungus… He's the Order member with the fence operation, correct?” Scott asked.

“I don't think he's smart enough to have an 'operation'. He's just a thief,” Ginny scoffed.

Scott shrugged, not interested in the distinction. “Well, when we saw him in Hogsmeade I took a suitcase worth of stuff from him, was there a locket in there?”

Harry's heart, just moments before sunk with despair, jumped with hope. “I don't know, I just chucked it in my trunk and forgot about it, I never looked…”

“It's a good lead,” Scott opined.

There was a snag, Harry knew, one that had also occurred to Hermione, judging by the expression on her face. “We had to leave Harry's trunk at The Burrow,” she said. “Oh! Unless Lila brought it with her?”

Scott pulled his mobile out from somewhere in his many pockets. “On it.”

“If it is at The Burrow, we'll have to be very careful,” Hermione said, resuming the conversation as Scott walked away with his ear to the mobile.

“Maybe some of the wards are still up,” Ron said, though he didn't sound like he believed that. The look on his face made it clear what he thought of the alternative.

Harry could relate. The idea of Death Eaters roaming unopposed throughout The Burrow was violently repulsive. He was angry just thinking about what they might have done. In all his life, he had only found himself at home in two places, and now both of them had been violated. Ginny took hold of his right arm, either sensing his mood or seeking comfort for herself. He leaned into her and hoped, for her sake even more than his, that The Burrow was still intact.

“If we go, we should do it at night,” he said.

Ginny moved her head closer and whispered, “What about Kylie?”

Harry glanced over to where Kylie was seated on the sofa. She was reading a book that he hoped she had been given by Hermione, as most of the books in Grimmauld Place were not appropriate for her (or anyone, really).

“Scott said he had an idea,” Hermione offered.

“Did he bother to share it?” Ron asked.

“What do you think?”

“Wait until he's done, then we'll see,” Harry said.

Scott lowered the phone from his ear. “They didn't take your trunk. Lil says they were already loaded down, so anything of ours is probably still there.”

“Damn.” Harry squeezed Ginny's hand a bit tighter when he felt her tense; she knew they were going. “All right. We'll need to start planning.”

“Yeah. Oh, and Ginny…” Scott held the mobile out towards her. “Your mom wants to talk to you.”

Ginny paled. “What?”

“Your mom. She's on the phone. Don't shout, she can hear you just fine, and give it back to me when you're done.” Scott actually looked sympathetic, which was not a good sign. “You might want to take this out in the hall, but don't wander far.”

Ginny looked a trifle faint. She took the mobile from Scott's hand the way she might a live snake. She hesitantly raised it to her ear, looking to Harry to make sure she was doing it right. When he nodded, she took a deep breath and said, “…Mum?”

The outburst from the other end was not comprehensible, but definitely audible. Harry fervently prayed that Mrs Weasley did not want to talk to him next. He hadn't been raised in the Weasley household and didn't know how to deal with a scolding, never had.

Ginny winced and her lower lip trembled for a moment. Then she took another deep breath, and her face set with familiar determination. “I'm fine, Mum! I… No! I can't! _I can't!”_ she insisted, rapidly walking out the door.

“Don't go far!” Scott yelled after her.

“Scott, don't you dare give me that bloody thing next,” Ron warned.

“I would have preferred to avoid it, but Lil can only do so much.”

“Will she be joining us once the Weasleys are settled?” Hermione asked, steadfastly ignoring the shouting echoing in from the hall.

“Unlikely. Charlie and Bill have been talking with the Order. If they get together to strike back, they'll need Lil.”

“Keep Lila with them, we've got you,” Ron insisted.

“I was planning on it, relax. Now let's get some food while we still can, we have to go to The Burrow and who knows what's waiting for us.”

“You said earlier you had a plan for…?” Hermione subtly nodded her head towards Kylie.

“It's in progress,” Scott said unhelpfully.

“BECAUSE I LOVE HIM AND I'M STAYING!” Ginny screeched from somewhere outside.

“…How very awkward,” Scott said after a pause. “Ron, go tell your sister not to break my com.”

“Tell her yourself!” Ron said.

Harry was touched to hear Ginny proclaim her love for him, and to her mother, no less, but couldn't help wishing she hadn't dragged his name into that mess. His good graces with Mrs Weasley were probably in serious jeopardy. No mother would be pleased to have her daughter rushing off into danger for some boy, even if that boy was the Chosen One and a friend of the family.

“I never should have let her come,” he said miserably.

“That's not your choice,” Hermione told him sharply. “Would you have left me behind?”

Maybe if he'd ever thought it were possible. Though, then again… “No,” he said reluctantly. “I need your help.”

“Be sure to tell Ginny she's of no use! And it's nice to know I don't rate for companionship,” Hermione snapped.

She stalked off, leaving the room. Ron went after her, stopping for a second to give Harry a look of disbelief.

Harry sighed. “Why do I even bother talking at all?”

“Masochism,” Scott said through a mouthful of a cereal bar he hadn't been eating a moment before. “Rampant, unbridled masochism.”

“And why do I bother talking to _you?”_

“Refer to my previous statement. Kylie, do you want granola?”

When Ginny came back in, she looked exhausted. She practically hurled the mobile at Scott and collapsed on the sofa with her head in her hands. Harry wanted to comfort her, but wasn't sure that would be safe. He was at least indirectly to blame for her distress.

“Why did Lila teach Mum to use that thing?” she groaned.

“Consider yourself lucky she stalled as long as she did,” Scott said.

She looked at him through her fingers. “You aren't going to make me go back, are you?”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Never mind,” she said a bit more cheerfully. “What are we eating?”


	11. When We Remembered Zion

**11**

**When We Remembered Zion**

\--- 

 _“The 'Long Night', they called it, two hundred_  
 _days of darkness in which the cold took back_  
 _the countryside and the populace went dormant_  
 _below the permafrost. The same astrophysical_  
 _phenomenon that birthed the unique economy_  
 _of Arcturus created the eclipse which took it all_  
 _away once every twelve years. Many would leave,_  
 _returning with the light. Those who stayed would_  
 _watch their world freeze, held in stasis,_  
 _succumbing to sleep._  
  
_But the war did not freeze. It would burn hot,_  
 _cracking the ice, dispelling the night with the flash_  
 _of muzzles and the bright blast of artillery. The_  
 _two hundred days would not reign in silence so_  
 _long as the Commonwealth maintained their_  
 _position. As the shadow of Stygia fell over the_  
 _planet, the soldiers girded themselves for the_  
 _long, cold dark. The formations did not change._  
 _No terms were given. This refusal to retreat_  
 _would result in the most horrific chapter of_  
 _the Border 219 Conflict. Few would leave the_  
 _Long Night unscathed; all would remember_  
 _the lessons in darkness.”_

                      —Colonel Had Yinsen, Ret., _The Long Night_  

\--- 

The plan was simple.

They would Apparate to the edge of the woods where they had previously Disapparated to Lila's flat. From there, they would retrace their steps to The Burrow, taking stock of the situation and looking for any new traps. At that point, based on the level of opposition, they would either approach the house or try something else. Harry and Scott would go first (Assault Team), whilst Ron, Hermione and Ginny would take position on the first floor (Fire Team — Scott had been very insistent in his terminology).

Ginny had complained for a bit about not being part of the Assault Team, but it hadn't done her any good. Scott had been unyielding when it came to 'squad' composition and everyone else seemed willing to give way to his experience. Ginny couldn't help but think that _Lila_ would have put her on Assault Team…

Since then, they had all tried to keep busy until nightfall. Scott had weaponry to attend to and Harry was back to shooting cups. Hermione was in her room studying, where Ron was no doubt studying her. That left Ginny with nothing to do. Even Kylie was assisting Scott with his guns, mutely handing him whatever tools or pieces he asked for. She seemed to be enjoying herself, though it was hard to tell.

Grimmauld Place was cold and musty and bereft of amusements. So she loitered outside the dining hall, covering her ears and waiting for Harry to run out of ammunition or stamina. Snogging was about the only pastime she could think of that didn't involve a book. Unless Harry was willing to share his new toy. She knew it was dangerous, but she kind of liked that.

She leaned against the door and watched him reload with limited success; he was trying a technique he had yet to master. She admired the way his lean arms cradled the weapon with little regard to its weight. Harry had long had the appearance of being underfed, but he was finally filling out, gaining a definition to his chest and shoulders that made her pulse quicken.

And she loved him. That still was strange to admit, even to herself. Her feelings for Harry had aged with her, progressing each year: infatuation, longing, lust and then love. Time had blurred the lines between them, the steps indistinct. When had her awe been replaced by respect? When had she supplanted a want for the hero of the stories with a need for the real one? She was uncertain. It was enough to know she could at last be with him, despite his many attempts to ensure otherwise.

That was a persistent fault of his. Loving the person instead of wanting the legend had meant coming to understand just how much wreckage he insisted on carrying with him. Harry had always been unable to let go of guilt, clinging stubbornly to regret. He was a martyr in his own mind, determined to sacrifice all he was to save those he loved. He never seemed to grasp how pointless a gesture it was. Those who were close to him either couldn't or _wouldn't_ be saved in such a fashion. He just wanted to assuage his unwarranted guilt by abandoning the people he felt were afflicted with his existence.

It was enough to drive her mad, most days.

Even after it had been made repeatedly clear that Ginny wasn't going anywhere, Harry still dragged his feet in their relationship. It was true that they had made great progress recently. That was largely due to her ongoing war against his reserve.

Contrary to some of the nastier rumours that had circulated Hogwarts, Ginny was not a slag. Neither of her previous boyfriends had made it any further than her neck, and not due to lack of trying on their part. For whatever reason, the curvature that she had expected to gain at the onset of her teen years had never quite come to fruition. She ended up short but still willowy, her pleasure at maintaining a tiny waist offset by maintaining a tiny everything else. But she had learned that her red hair, bright smile and confidence could do what other girls relied solely on their figure to accomplish. And not every bloke was looking for an excess of padding, anyway (Charlie's fascination with Lila's extravagant bust notwithstanding). Harry certainly didn't seem to mind.

And she had been giving him plenty of opportunities not to mind. From the outset, she had recognised that he wasn't going to push, not when it came to her, so she had to advance their relationship enough for the both of them. The outcome had sometimes been awkward in retrospect, and a lot of her confidence had been a front. She forcefully sublimated her doubts and hesitation because he had enough for both of them. She wasn't always certain when to ease back on the pressure and when to increase it, but, if his tense stance as he held his dangerous new toy was any indication, he needed another dose of the particular care only his girlfriend could provide.

That was when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the front door begin to open.

It slid forward, then back, and then jumped forward again, as if whoever was opening it was unsure if they wanted to enter. It took Ginny a moment to understand what she was seeing. The house was invisible, and everyone who could get inside of it already was. So if the door was opening…

“HARRY!” she shouted to gain his attention, and then she sprinted down the hallway and hurled herself against the door. A surprised squeak came from the other side, but the door itself barely moved; the breath whooshed from Ginny's lungs at the impact.

Harry came rushing down the hall with his Muggle weapon in hand, trying to reload it whilst running. He snapped it shut, and Ginny heard a gasp from the threshold.

“Hold fire!” a high-pitched voice yelled out. “Friendly! Friendly!” A tiny, pale hand poked through the opening and waved back and forth.

Harry hesitated. “Who's there?”

Ginny found herself being pushed aside as the door opened further. “It's Sophie! Remember me?”

In stepped a diminutive woman with curly brown hair, a pixie face and large green eyes. She was dressed in Muggle attire and carried a sizeable rucksack in one hand. Ginny didn't recognise her, but Harry seemed to.

“Sophie!” he exclaimed, lowering his weapon. “How did you get in?”

“I had help,” she said. She turned to close the door in the same halting fashion she had opened it. “Scott let me in on the charm, it's very interesting! I had a little trouble with the door…” She extended one perfectly manicured hand towards Ginny. “Hello, Ginny, we didn't have a chance to meet last time. I'm Sophie Strauss, I work with Scott.”

Ginny shook the offered appendage; the woman's grip was stronger than a hand that delicate had any right to be. “Hello. Sorry about slamming the door into you.”

“It's my fault,” Sophie said graciously. “Scott told me to just come in, but I should have known better. Is he upstairs or down?”

Harry started to reply, and that was the moment when the curtains on the wall flew open to reveal Mrs Black's portrait. She began to howl her usual torrent of abuse. _“Mudbloods, filthy half-breeds defiling my house! Blood traitors, get out—”_

Harry jumped forward and wrestled the drapes shut, swearing at the old woman under his breath. When silence fell once again, Ginny looked back to see that Sophie had produced a handgun from somewhere in her clothing and was aiming it at the portrait. Ginny wondered if a bullet would have been effective. Perhaps Harry could practise on Mrs Black at some point.

“My goodness!” Sophie breathed, tucking her gun away. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, that's just Mrs Black, she's barking mad,” Harry said, glaring at the covered painting. “Just shut the curtains again if she shouts at you. Here, I think Scott is downstairs with Kylie.”

Sophie followed them to the stairwell, curiously studying her surrounds. Her expression remained polite, but Ginny couldn't imagine she was impressed. Nobody else was.

Scott was still at the table, performing some kind of maintenance on a weapon Ginny had never seen before. Kylie was placing bullets on the table in neat rows with great concentration; it seemed Scott had found an unlikely apprentice.

“Scott!” Sophie called out excitedly. Kylie started and knocked over some of the ammunition.

“Sophie, my dear, how wonderful to see you,” Scott said with overstated cordiality. “I see you've got your tits back, and they are _marvellous.”_

Sophie gasped in shock. “Scott! Don't sexually harass me in front of a child!”

“Ooh, you're right.” Scott pointed at Kylie. “Kylie, forget I just said that.”

Kylie nodded.

“Anywho,” Scott said uncomfortably, “welcome to base camp.”

“It looks very… defensible,” Sophie said with careful courtesy.

Harry snorted dismissively. “Don't hold back for my sake. This place is a rubbish heap.”

“It just needs some fixing,” Sophie said positively. “What are the other floors like?”

“I'll give you the tour,” Scott told her. “In the event of ward failure there are only a few points of ingress.”

They left and went upstairs. To Ginny's surprise, Kylie stayed behind and continued counting out her neat rows of bullets.

“She seems nice,” Ginny said to Harry.

“She is. She's about the opposite of Lila, from what I remember.”

“Hey, I like Lila!” she objected.

“I mean, she's not… You know, pushy like Lila.”

“And Scott.”

“And Scott, yeah.”

Ginny brushed her hair back from her face. “Do you think she's pretty?” she asked casually.

Harry just looked at her. “I'm not falling for that again.”

“It's just a simple question, Harry.”

“Are you going to do this every time Scott brings in some pretty new Kharadjai?”

“Ah ha! You _do_ think she's pretty.”

“Her and half the girls at Hogwarts, so what?” Harry said exasperatedly. “How many of them did I end up with?”

Ginny wasn't actually threatened by Sophie any more than she had been by Lila. Rather, it was that Ginny took a perverse pleasure in tormenting Harry in that one specific fashion. He was just too adorable when flustered (and, no matter how much faith she had in his strength of character, it was always nice to hear that he only wanted her).

“Cho Chang,” she said pointedly. Now, Cho was another matter entirely. Lila and Sophie were well off limits, but plenty of Hogwarts girls would have loved to get their claws into Harry — and Cho briefly had.

Harry sighed. “Thanks so much for reminding me of that huge mistake.”

“Uh-huh, that'll teach you not to notice me!” Ginny was only partially joking, self-aware enough to know that jealousy was one of her less attractive features (and seemed to run in the family).

“I just love it when you get scary possessive,” Harry said dryly.

“I don't think you can blame me after you've tried to chuck me about ten times,” she rejoined. “If I let you go, you won't come back!”

“…That's fair,” Harry sighed. His expression had become more serious. “Thanks for holding on, Gin.”

She hugged him and pressed her mouth to his, savouring the rasp of his fledgling stubble and the way his lower lip felt beneath her tongue. “I had to, for both of us,” she said once they separated. She had waited six years for him to see her as something other than Ron's little sister, despairing that maybe he never would, that she could never be what he wanted. Once she finally had him, he had tried to use fear as an excuse to tear them apart. She could never have stayed behind. She couldn't imagine bearing that.

She didn't express that to him, because he wouldn't understand. Only Hermione did, really. Two romantics waiting for a pair of thick-headed boys to see what was right in front of them.

“So…” Harry said, “I don't suppose you'd consider going back to your mum?”

“I'm going to pretend that you're joking,” Ginny said, not letting go of him.

“It sounded like your talk didn't go well,” he ventured.

That was a massive understatement. “We didn't 'talk' much. Mostly just yelled.”

“We heard, yeah.”

She grimaced. “It was hard, because I know she's scared for me, but she has to understand that I need to do this. And if we don't win, how long would I be safe hidden away? It's just…” She tried to find the right words. “I _know_ she worries about Bill and the twins and Charlie, but she doesn't order _them_ back home! But I'm the youngest and a girl, so I have to be coddled, always. It was like she couldn't even believe that I wanted to be a part of this. I _need_ to be.”

“It might be easier to think of you like that if you weren't so beautiful,” Harry said without a hint of condescension.

She kissed him again — he'd just earned it. “Maybe I should carry bombs and stuff like Lila; _then_ they'd take me seriously.” She frowned. “I hope Mum doesn't go after her, now.”

Harry didn't look concerned. “She can probably handle it.”

Ginny knew he was right, though that raised the question of who would handle Lila. “So I suppose Sophie is here to look after Kylie when we're away?” she said, changing the subject.

“I think so. She doesn't do the same thing as Scott, she has a different speciality, or something,” Harry said vaguely.

“She worked out how to open the door by herself,” Ginny noted. It was a simple enough task, but for a non-witch without a wand?

Harry looked startled — he must not have thought about it. “Hey, you're right. I don't think she even had a wand, and Scott can barely light his…”

“Maybe she'll want to learn magic.”

“Hermione would be happy to help. I'm not sure how much time she'll have, though.”

“True.” Ginny tugged at his hand and nodded towards the shotgun he had set on the table. “Come on, teach me how to use this thing.”

Harry looked delighted. “Sure!” Then his face fell. “Except… I probably shouldn't. I'm just learning myself, Scott should show you how to be safe.”

“I don't want Scott to show me, I want _you_ to do it,” she said stubbornly. “You don't have to let me shoot it, I just want to see what you do.”

“Well, then Scott probably wouldn't care. I know I don't. I think there are some more ear plugs in that black bag, let's check.”

***---~**~---***  

Ron had plenty to worry about. He'd never been much of a worrier, mostly because Harry and Hermione took care of that, but even he couldn't ignore the immense difficulties ahead. And, thanks to the interference of Scott and Lila, he had something else unpleasant to look forward to: a possible call from his mum.

Sure, she had wanted to shout at Ginny first, and Hermione had said something about the need to vent and that Mum might settle down now, but Ron knew better. The next time the call came, it would be to berate him for letting his baby sister tag along, as if he had any choice in the matter. Mum just didn't understand the situation. He supposed that Lila might explain it to her. He was glad to be far removed from _that_ conversation.

Hermione had been in a frenzy of research ever since it had become clear that they were returning to The Burrow. He understood the necessity of planning, and that she was trying to make progress on her spell for night missions, but he wished she would at least talk to him. He needed distraction. The adrenaline took the edge off the terror of the actual confrontations; it was the waiting which was unbearable.

She was fully immersed in her books; they were piled around her as if she were in the process of building a shelter. Her hunched position put her breasts in clear view, dangling tantalisingly from the confines of her jumper. He could remember the moment in fourth year when he'd first noticed that her chest was gaining some interesting properties, and it had only become better since then. He didn't know much about bra sizes and whatnot, but he knew what he liked. Hermione was less than Lila and more than Lavender, falling into the category known as _perfect_.

He looked away in case she caught him staring. He really couldn't help himself, though. Her chestnut hair fell around her face in a tempting tangle and her eyes were bright with interest, alight with that vital spark of intelligence which made her look so beautiful and alive. Why _should_ he look away? There wasn't anything wrong with a bloke wanting his girlfriend. He was supposed to.

In fact, he had been trying to think of a way (inspired by Harry) to bring up sleeping arrangements without sounding like a complete pervert. There was more to it than just presentation; sharing a bed with Hermione would be temptation itself. He didn't know if he could trust himself not to touch her. And what if she _wanted_ him to? What then? He was caught between desire, his upbringing and the distant but ever-present fear that each moment he had with her might be the last.

Not that any of it mattered when she was so busy. He knew how important her work was, and had thus far successfully resisted the urge to force her to take a break. Another half hour and he would anyway.

A knock at the door jolted him from his thoughts.

“Ron, could you get that?” Hermione said absently, turning a page.

He already was, expecting it to be Scott checking on Hermione's progress. He certainly hadn't expected to see the short woman who greeted him with a gleaming smile.

“Hi, Ron!” she said with a little wave of her hand. “Remember me? Sophie?”

It took Ron a moment to equate the wide-eyed, skinny girl he'd met at the Christmas party with the full-figured woman in front of him. “Right, Sophie. How are you?”

“Good, I'm good. Hermione, hello!”

Hermione had risen at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and walked up behind Ron. “Sophie!” she said with surprise. “When did you get here?”

“Just a few minutes ago. I tried to let myself in but it didn't work very well; I had some trouble with the door and then Ginny thought I was invading,” Sophie told them with a sheepish tilt of her head.

“Scott failed to inform us of your arrival, I'm sure that didn't help,” Hermione said. “Will you be staying long?”

“Yes!” Sophie replied enthusiastically. “I've been tasked with securing the dwelling for the duration of your stay. Do you have any food requests?”

“Uh… No?” Ron said, glancing at Hermione in confusion.

“We just went shopping, actually,” Hermione said.

“Okay, I'll be sure to take stock of supplies. Scott is still showing me the building, so I'll see you around!” With that, Sophie shut the door and was gone.

“…So, is she like our secretary now?” Ron wondered.

“Ron, do yourself a favour and don't call her that,” Hermione warned.

“Why? What's she going to do, be slightly less polite?” he scoffed. “Still, she's a nice change from the other Kharadjai we know.”

“ _She_ might not do much, but Scott fancies her, remember?”

“Does he?” Ron had honestly not noticed at the party, but he'd had Hermione firmly on his mind then (some things didn't change, he reckoned).

“I thought so. Either way, we could use the help.”

Ron gave her a sideways glance. She was finally on her feet, which seemed like a good time to intercede. “How about you take a breather?” he suggested.

She straightened out her jumper and ran a hand through her hair. “Yes… I'm not getting anywhere with that spell as it is. I need more sources, I think.”

That wasn't Ron's cup of tea, but he knew that spell creation, and even the modification of an existing spell, was highly difficult. “I just wish I could help you. I'm rubbish at that stuff.”

“No, you aren't, don't say that!” She scolded. Maybe he was sick, but he'd always found it a bit arousing when she was bossy. “Besides, you've been keeping me company even though I know you're bored. I haven't told you how much I appreciate that.”

“The view is never boring,” he said with a grin.

She blushed. “I… could make it more exciting,” she said playfully. She tugged down on her collar a bit, exposing a sliver of pale skin and a mole that Ron had only seen a handful of times.

His jaw dropped. Prim and proper Hermione was already sexy — a teasing Hermione was almost more than his libido could handle.

Her blush intensified and she dropped her hand. “Um… I mean, I like that you—”

He couldn't have stopped himself if he'd wanted to. He pinned her against the door, cushioning her softness with his arms and kissing her furiously, plundering her mouth. She squirmed in his grip but, far from trying to get away, she was working for a better position, hoisting herself up by wrapping her lithe legs around his waist. Her hands grasped at his shoulders and the back of his head.

It was heaven. He wanted more, could never get enough. Her tongue was like silk, her lips like candy and her body arched into his, highlighting every luscious curve. If only he had known she would be so receptive to taking a break.

But all good things had to end, this time due to the demands of oxygen. They broke apart, breathing hard, and she slid down him to stand on unsteady legs.

“…Oh, my,” she said after a moment.

Ron nodded dumbly. It was at that point he realised that he was sporting a full erection against her stomach. She had to have felt it, it couldn't be more obvious. But, not only had she not cringed away, she was pressing back into him with fervour.

“Would you like to sleep in here?” she asked suddenly, not meeting his eyes as if afraid of the answer. “Unless you think it's not appropriate, and I understand, it's a quite an adjustment—” she babbled.

He didn't know what to say to make her stop so he kissed her instead, silencing her mouth with his. “That would be brilliant,” he said after.

“Good, then that's settled,” she murmured, leaning closer again. “I don't see any reason to stop…”

He was more than happy to resume.

***---~**~---***  

“That's the attic,” Scott said, pointing to the narrow, uneven stairs which led up to the peeling white door. “I've only been in there a couple times. We did some cleaning, there's a lot of material. You might want to take stock when you get a chance.”

Sophie smiled up at him. “It will be like antiquing!”

He had something else to say after that but forgot what it was for a moment, stunned by the flash of her eyes and smile. He kept his face impassive as he sought his missing words; he needed to be careful if he was going to avoid embarrassing himself. It had been some time since he had basked in Sophie's adult presence, and he had to readjust. He hadn't expected her to look (or smell) so good.

She was short in stature but utterly feminine in form, a china doll with a porcelain complexion. Her tiny waist tapered out into broad hips and a delightfully well-shaped posterior; above, her slim, elegant neck and shoulders presided over a high-set pair of full breasts. Her features were a classical conception of cherubic beauty, with wide, pink cupid's bow lips and huge bright green eyes surmounting her heart-shaped face, framed by curly milk chocolate locks.

It wasn't easy, being professional around her. Sometimes Scott didn't bother to try.

“Watch your fingers, some of those antiques might bite,” he said finally. “There's all kinds of wacky magic sunk into this place.”

“I know, I feel it,” she said distantly, her eyes unfocussed.

Scott knew many people who frequently accessed the shape, and it only bothered him when she did it. Perhaps it was because her wide eyes were so emotive, so bright — when touching the shape she had a doll's eyes, glassy and lifeless. He always wanted to shake her, force her to come back to him. He'd never had that urge with another Kharadjai. Of course, he had a lot of urges when it came to Sophie. Many were less innocent.

“You might notice the work I did on the largest spell, the area Fidelius Charm,” he said, smoothly ignoring his instinct. “We want to keep it attached to everyone in this house only.”

“Has it been regenerating?”

“No, and I don't think it will. But, just in case.”

“I see there's been a lot of strengthening between Primes,” she commented.

“Largely without my interference. High stress and close quarters: a recipe for bonding. Or breaking apart.”

“Well, lucky for you this group is prone to the former!”

“Most of the time.” Scott looked her up and down. “I see you've recovered well from your Christmas ordeal.”

Sophie's cheeks tinged the slightest shade of pink. “I was fifteen!” She put her hands on her generous hips. “It was all your fault, anyway. You didn't need me there.”

“Ah, but…” Scott leaned in close and lowered his voice, “I need you now.”

She looked away, hiding a smile behind her hand. “Here I am! So, what were you saying about Kylie?”

Scott quickly sobered. “She's traumatised, with good reason.” He gave a summary of the events which had brought Kylie to Grimmauld Place. “She's stopped talking. I try to keep her engaged and busy, but she sleeps a lot.”

“That poor girl,” Sophie murmured sympathetically. “I'll try not to leave her alone if I can help it.”

“One more thing,” Scott continued as he led the way downstairs. “There's a little gremlin-thing called Kreacher that lives here. He served the previous family as a butler, or something. He's a crazy little shit, but, he's afraid of guns; so, he should steer clear of you.”

Sophie looked intrigued. “He's a _gremlin?”_

“A house-elf. If you want to know more, you should ask Hermione.”

“You'll probably tell me that for everything,” she replied slyly.

“Hey, if the Primes can handle it, let them,” he said.

“Okay, okay,” she said, smiling again.

Scott went back to his weapons as Sophie assisted Kylie with the counting, introducing herself and trying to establish some early rapport. Kylie seemed to accept the woman's presence readily enough, though the real test would come once Scott had to leave.

His thoughts turned to the operation. The Burrow was difficult to approach without being seen, he knew that from experience. The same woods that had once sheltered them in their flight would serve the same purpose for their entry. The closest he had ever come to assaulting a fixed wizarding position had been his hit and run with the claymore mine outside the Death Eater mansion. He didn't know what kind of defences were standard use for Riddle's men. None of his Primes seemed to know either, and he suspected that the Death Eaters had no modus operandi. The enemy was a loose confederation of irregulars comprised of idealistic bigots, opportunists and conscripts. Whatever organisation existed would likely depend on local officers, not general orders. Riddle seemed content enough with the state of his 'army' so long as they remained loyal to him.

Thus, there existed a random element. There always was in combat, but in this case Scott had only a slightly better idea what to expect than he had going into the cave. The enemy was united by ideology, not training. That could be an advantage. Zealots rarely made good soldiers. Even more of them were simply riding the coattails of what they thought was the winning side. Combatants lacking conviction would fold in the absence of training or fear to keep them in a fight they didn't want. Riddle used fear, and Scott had never put much faith in that as a consistent motivator. Combatants faced with certain death from the enemy would prefer to chance possible death from their superiors.

Adaptability would be essential, but it always was. That was true a hundred times over for an integrationist. His training demanded that he hit the opposing force as hard as possible, but Scott had held back on more than one occasion to further a connection to his Primes. There were lines to be crossed, and some that had to be walked. As in the shape, as in space — the universe, like those it was comprised of, sought equilibrium.

“They call me the seeker — I've been searchin' low and hi-iiiiiiiiiiiigh,” Scott sang to himself as he refitted the telescopic stock to the M4A1 he had chosen for the night. The short barrel, zero-magnification optics and light recoil made it ideal for mid-range encounters. He'd also laid out his semi-automatic shotgun, to be used if the house were occupied.

“What's that song?” Kylie asked.

Scott froze for a fraction of a second before his composure snapped back into place. “It's from an old band. They come right from your own backyard, in fact,” he said casually. “How many magazines have you counted out?”

“Nine,” she said, pointing to the obsessively neat rows of bullets she had created. It had taken her several times longer than it would have if Scott had done it himself, but that wasn't the point. Anything to draw her out.

“Sophie, could you load those, please?”

Kylie shrunk a little. “Can I load, too?”

Scott knew those tiny fingers of hers didn't stand a chance against the spring in a high capacity magazine. “I have a different job for you, since you've got experience,” he said. “Now, these rounds go in rows of eight, okay? Not forty like the others.”

Kylie appeared pleased enough with that proposition. She opened the box of .45 JSP and started counting, her mouth moving silently with the numbers.

“What are you packing at the moment?” Scott asked Sophie.

“Well, I had to leave my Aus-10 at the Transferral because they stopped me and said you were doing tech equivalence for your integration, and I was like, 'Oh, duh! Of course he is!' So they gave me this .40, but the slide sticks. And it's not very clean,” she said unhappily.

“Why do you think I always go to Litchfield?”

“The gate armoury is the only choice when you're in a hurry! It's not like you gave me advance notice or anything…”

“You still shouldn't have left your Aus at a grease locker. Why didn't you give it to Pat?”

“He wasn't there. If my Auslight ends up in some Second Fleet holster, I'm blaming you!”

“I think I could make it up to you,” Scott said, leaning back in his chair and flexing his muscles.

Sophie rolled her eyes, though not before giving him a good once over. “I doubt _that_ is worth eighty-eight fifty.”

“Eighty-eight fifty?!” Scott exclaimed. “What is it plated with, adamantium?”

“It's the limited edition!”

He slowly shook his head. “Sophie, Sophie… You are such a sucker for limited edition and/or commemorative everything.”

“They're new, and it's _very_ nice,” she said defensively.

“It had better be for eighty-eight fifty. I hope it at least came with a really expensive bottle of designer booze, or something. God. _Eighty-eight fifty_ — for eighty-eight fifty the sales rep should give you a haircut and a handjob! It should—”

“I _get it_ , and do you just forget that…” Sophie looked meaningfully in Kylie's direction.

Scott winced. “I— she doesn't even… All right, sorry. Do you forgive me, Kylie?”

Kylie nodded immediately.

“There, see? She forgives me.”

“You're a bad person,” Sophie said haughtily.

“But a smarter shopper,” Scott muttered.

The evening wore on, and the sun descended. As twilight began to creep across the sky, everyone gathered in the kitchen for final preparations. They were all dressed in dark clothes, looking down at the crude map Scott had sketched out.

“We're all familiar with these grounds,” he began, “so this diagram is for our point of entry and exit. Go ahead and draw on it if you think of something.” He placed his finger north of The Burrow, near the river. “We go in here, where we left the last time. It's also our fall back position. Secondary fall back is the path from the road, here. If we get scattered, link up with whoever you can and Disapparate. Harry?”

Harry stepped forward. “Right… I thought we shouldn't get caught out in the garden in a single group. Scott and I will go in the front door whilst the rest of you lot get in the back, and, yes, Ginny, Scott will be going in first. He won't let me 'take point'.”

“A _point_ in his favour,” she said, grinning at her own pun.

Harry shut his eyes for a second. “Ugh. Anyway, I'm hoping we'll see any Death Eaters about through the windows, if they're inside. We can't count on it, though, so we need to be quiet for as long as we can. If we find the locket, then we leave as quick as we're able; we don't want more showing up like last time.”

“We don't know what the locket is capable of, or how well it understands what's happening around it. I'm going to bring Scott's strongbox along in my handbag, and that should provide some protection,” Hermione added.

Harry nodded. “Good thought. Anyone have something to add?”

“If no one is there, can we look around a bit?” Ginny asked. “There're some things I'd like to bring back here.”

Scott was prepared to buy Harry time to find the locket with his life, if needed, but he didn't care for the idea of becoming a casualty because the girls needed more shampoo. “I'm not getting shot because you forgot your lube.”

“Scott!” Sophie hissed, clapping her hands over the ears of a confused Kylie.

He really needed to stop doing that. “I mean, Ginny, you can look around if it's clear, but let's not get stuck in a fight for a few extra pairs of trousers.”

“Obviously. I'm not daft,” Ginny snapped.

In the interests of mission unity, he decided not to prod her further. “I know.”

Harry appeared grateful that the spat had ended so quickly. “Anything else?”

No one spoke. The air was charged with anticipation and anxiety.

“Okay,” Harry said then, “we'll go at ten.”

***---~**~---*** 

 **2200**

The field by the river looked exactly the same in the moonlight as it had before, a startling (and somewhat heartening) reminder that it hadn't been long at all since the retreat from the wedding. The short time frame put their progress into perspective. It made Hermione feel more accomplished. Although, it also meant they hadn't survived very long, which was the pessimistic view.

The night was still save for the rustling of leaves, the rush of the river and the drone of distant cars. The group, tense and confused in the moments after Apparition, regained their bearings. Those first few moments were their most vulnerable. They spread out and kept a careful eye on the trees.

Hermione watched Scott. He was the most likely to see threats first, their best early warning system. He swung his short rifle around in slow arcs, no doubt searching for heat signatures.

“Clear,” he said, lowering his weapon back to where it hung against his torso. He had it attached to some sort of strap system that allowed him to keep his hands free. Hermione approved of the versatility offered, and was already wondering if something similar could be constructed for her wand.

“Right, up the hill,” Harry whispered.

They advanced with minimal discourse, climbing the short hill they had once descended and finding the same deer path they had followed before. They passed the tree trunks that Scott had pushed aside, and saw the circular depression in the dirt which marked where a Death Eater had stepped in Hermione's trap. It was too dark to see anything more, but she imagined the soil was stained with rusty blood, and looked away.

The Burrow sat quiet and dark across the grassy expanse of the side garden. There were no obvious signs of major damage, though it wasn't easy to tell at such a distance. She thought Ron's window might be broken, and remembered Lila using it as a vantage point for her machine gun.

But the appearance of abandonment was deceiving, for when they moved farther forward a single dim light could be seen gleaming out from the ground floor. It looked to be coming from the kitchen.

“Damn,” Harry muttered. “I guess it was too much to hope that it would be empty.”

Scott had his binoculars out. “I see two, sitting at the table. I think they're playing cards.”

“Another couple of alarms,” Harry surmised.

“Yeah. They shouldn't have a light on, that's a great way to ruin an ambush. This is what happens when you put thugs in a hood and call it a uniform.”

“They're dumb berks, lucky for us. I say let them be stupid,” Ron said.

“Amen.”

“Scott, what about spells?” Hermione asked.

“None of the usual wards are still here. There's a kind of ambient energy around, but I think it's just a remnant,” he reported.

“Old spells tend to linger; it makes re-establishing wards easier,” she explained.

“…There might be some other things around. On the ground, maybe. I need to get closer.”

“Could be traps,” Harry said. “Do you think you can get Hermione to the right spot?”

Scott unclipped the rifle from his chest and handed it to a startled Harry. “Cover us,” he said, drawing a handgun and thumbing the hammer. “Hermione?”

“Ready,” she said tersely. She wasn't enthused at the prospect of going ahead, but it had to be done.

Ron's hand shot out and snatched her wrist. “Don't go far,” he said with a worried edge.

“I won't,” she assured him. “Please don't come running after me unless it's serious, I don't want you to step in a trap.”

He smiled tightly. “No promises, love.”

“Don't shoot me in the ass,” Scott told Harry, and then he left the brush in a low crouch, moving much faster than Hermione thought he should be able to in such a position. She did her best to keep up, taking advantage of her shorter stature and leaning over instead of bending her knees as much.

Scott halted by a patch of grass that looked no different than any other. He held out a hand to stop her. “Here,” he said, pointing downwards. “And there are more.”

Hermione extended her wand, waving it near the patch with cautious motions. “ _Incantatem Revelio_ ,” she whispered. The runes that briefly shone above her wand were not familiar in their sequence, but the individual characters told her enough. “…I think it's a variation on the trap spell I used after the wedding.”

“What are the trigger conditions?”

“I can't tell. Touching it would do the trick, I'm sure, but I don't know if it's individual or if they're chained somehow.”

“Will it create an alarm?”

“If it's being monitored then yes, indirectly. But the spell I used made very little sound. They'll be counting on whoever gets caught to start screaming, I'd imagine,” she said, shivering a bit at the thought of any of her friends stumbling into the spell.

“So there's a good chance these are self-contained. We're looking at a minefield, not a proximity fence.”

She wished she could give him a more positive answer. “Probably. But it's a risk.”

“It always is.” He raised his head and peered at the house. “There's no Anti-Apparition field in place. That has to be deliberate.”

He had a point — an Anti-Apparition Jinx was the first line of defence against intrusion. “They wanted us to come in like that, knowing we couldn't leave the same way…”

“Let's go back and share. We'll have to make a call on this.”

Back in the trees, the new information left opinions divided.

“Just get rid of the traps and we'll rush like we planned,” Harry said, handing the rifle back to Scott.

“I can't. Too small, too widespread. I have to get close,” Scott said.

“If you lead us, we might get past without tripping any,” Hermione said.

“And what happens if we have to leave in a hurry, maybe unable to Disapparate? They aren't just alarms, they're physically dangerous.”

“We've got the brooms in the handbag, why don't we fly upstairs?” Ginny proposed.

Ron peered upwards — the night sky was clear and moonlit. “Are we sure there's nobody else around?”

“No,” Scott stated. “We could do something for one or two people with the Cloak and a broom, but that doesn't help the rest of us. And I don't want anyone to touch anything until I check it first.”

“I can also check,” Hermione said, slightly offended.

“Me or Hermione,” Scott amended. “…But mostly me.”

“All right, look,” Harry said with surprising patience. “The Burrow is trapped. If Scott and Hermione can't get rid of the traps without causing an alarm, we won't be getting in there tonight. So we'll all go together, disabling traps along the way, and then surprise the Death Eaters in the kitchen, grab the locket, and get out.”

“You're right,” Hermione agreed. “Scott, let's try it.”

“I'll knock out that first trap. But get ready to Disapparate,” he warned.

Ginny latched on to Harry's hand, as much for support as Apparition, Hermione thought. She herself moved closer to Ron. Presumably, Scott would be able to tell if the destruction of the trap triggered any silent alarms; if not, the first sign they had been discovered would be more of Voldemort's cohorts arriving.

Scott crept back out onto the green to the night tunes of buzzing insects and the whispering breeze. The calm and cool of the clear air was strange in contrast to the situation. If Hermione closed her eyes, she could easily imagine that she stood at the end of a summer day, spent with friends as close as family. The violence which might be imminent was difficult to accept in a place that had always seemed so inviolate, so removed from the turmoil of the outside world.

Scott stopped near the closest trap and settled back onto his heels. As always, whatever he did to alter the raw energy of magic was an invisible process. A few minutes ticked by. She was just beginning to wonder if he were having difficulties, when he gestured to them. They moved out of the woods to follow.

Their pace was slow at first, but after removing several traps Scott seemed to gain a better understanding of them. Given how quickly he had destroyed spells in the past, it was safe to assume he was carefully disarming them instead of simply erasing them. Hermione just hoped that deactivating the spells had not alerted their creator.

When they reached the front of the house (making sure to move below the windows), Scott paused and pulled the shotgun from the sheathe on his back. Hermione flinched; she knew what came next, but her need to allow her friends to be protected was at war with her misgivings.

Scott placed his hand flat on the door. Either it was unprotected, or he took care of the spells; he looked back at them and put up five fingers. His mouth moved silently in countdown, the fingers lowering one by one. Harry hurried forward to stand behind him.

 _“One,”_ Scott silently enunciated, and then reared back and kicked open the door.

He was inside before the fragments of the latch hit the ground. Two shots blasted out in quick succession, sharp and rattling. Hermione held her breath, waiting for a counter-attack; there was none. A few soft sounds emanated from inside.

Harry stepped back out, looking pale in the light from the doorway. “Give him a second,” he said.

If she concentrated, Hermione thought she could hear the rasp of cloth and footsteps. A shiver of horror vibrated up her spine — Scott must have been moving bodies.

A handful of seconds later, Scott's head poked back outside. “Let's go,” he said, “and don't relax.”

“No worries there,” Ron muttered as they filed inside.

The light in the kitchen was from a candle flickering on the tabletop. Playing cards were scattered across the surface and the floor, along with dark drops of blood. More of the fluid anointed the wall; some of it looked undisturbed, but a lot of it was spread out in an unnatural smear, as if Scott had tried to wipe it off. There were only a few craggy pockmarks from the buckshot. The rest must have remained within the lumpy shapes in the corner, draped with a tablecloth. Hermione carefully averted her eyes.

She tried to ignore the cloying copper odour of blood as she examined house. The Burrow was in better shape than she had expected. The cupboards had been looted of food (likely by the two guards, judging from the mess they had made), but most of the structure itself was intact, including the windows.

“Lil said your family grabbed a ton of stuff before they left, so don't panic if something valuable is missing,” Scott was saying to Ron and Ginny.

“I bet Mum took the clock,” Ginny said, looking at the bare spot where it had been.

“Everyone stay where somebody can see you at all times. And make sure that candle stays lit. Harry?”

“Should still be upstairs,” Harry said.

Hermione felt their chances were improving. If the Weasleys had taken most items of value with them during their retreat, then the Death Eaters would have had little motivation for a thorough search. It seemed as if the enemy might have been instructed to leave The Burrow in its post-wedding condition in order to lure its former occupants back. Someone high up in the chain of command must have possessed the foresight to issue such an order, perhaps even Riddle himself. As it turned out, the ploy had actually worked — or it would have, had those left to keep guard been more vigilant.

“Ginny, you and I will watch outside — make _sure_ you stay below the windows. Ron, could you sit at the table? Let's make it look like nothing is wrong,” Hermione said, taking charge. She tried to close the door but it would no longer remain shut, so she propped a chair against it.

Ron started to rest his hands on the table before he thought better of it. “You know what happened to the last bloke who sat here?” he said uneasily.

She did. “It's only for a moment.”

“A moment too long. Bloody hell, I used to eat off this table…”

“I know, Ron, but—”

“I think someone's coming!” Ginny said urgently.

Hermione hurried to the kitchen window and peeked under the curtain. Three robed and hooded figures were making their way up the front walk. They weren't hurrying, and appeared to be in conversation. She estimated it would be no more than a few minutes before they reached the house.

“Stay right where you are!” she whispered frantically, and bolted up the stairs.

She rushed up to Ron and Harry's room — it was a mess. The two beds had been flipped over towards the window and the wall opposite was stripped down to its wooden frame, which had been charred. The glass in the window was gone completely, save for a few jagged shards at the edges, and the mirror over the dressing table was split in two. Brass shells were scattered all over the floor, mixed with steel links and dust.

Scott and Harry were crouched by the window behind a bed frame that Scott was supporting with one hand. Hermione realised that Harry's trunk must have been buried beneath the overturned bed by the explosion, which was a stroke of luck. Some of the trunk contents were laid out on the floor, including a familiar black suitcase. Harry held an object tightly wrapped in a rag.

“Death Eaters are coming up the path!” Hermione told them.

Scott was on his feet in a second, pushing the bed away and picking up his shotgun. “How many?”

“Three. They don't seem to know that anything is wrong, but we have a couple minutes at most, probably less.”

“We got what we came for,” Scott said. “Throw it all back in the trunk, Harry, and let's go.”

Harry dumped the loose items back in the trunk and handed the crumpled cloth to Hermione. She took it and dug into her handbag as fast as her fingers would allow, bringing out the strongbox and placing what she fervently hoped was the real locket inside. Scott lifted Harry's trunk, and together they hurried back downstairs.

Ron and Ginny were still in place, frozen with tension. “We're leaving!” Hermione said, gesturing to them.

They didn't need any encouragement. Ron jumped from his chair and took Hermione's hand whilst Ginny did the same with Harry. Hermione thought she could almost hear boots on the walk when she concentrated on Grimmauld Place, fixing it in her mind. The world contracted, twisted, and then she was gone.

***---~**~---*** 

Harry had stumbled into a recurring situation — same table, different locket. The group had gathered around the second such trinket to fall in their possession. There was something different about this one, though, he was sure of it.

Ginny looked uncharacteristically afraid, standing further back from the table than the others. “I think it's awake. Do you feel…?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, keeping her wand raised. “It was hiding itself before.”

They all could feel it. The locket had a presence, an aura of weight and physicality. It was not merely an object. Even as they stared at it, Harry felt it was staring back, assessing them in turn. He didn't like the idea that they were dealing with another diary, capable of defending itself.

Scott was the only one who had moved closer to the locket. He placed his palms on the table and leaned forward. “What are you looking for?” he murmured.

Hermione gave him a sharp look. “What is it doing?”

“I'm not sure. I've knocked out several threads it's sent at me, and it's trying to counter my defence. The reaction implies intelligence, or at least programming.”

“Not for long,” Harry said, and raised Godric's sword.

The locket snapped open.

There was a great rush of wind and a muffled roaring, and the room lost definition behind a haze. Harry's thoughts slowed, nearly ceased. He was lost, bemused. Where had he just been standing? Memory was suddenly unreliable. There was something heavy in his hand, and he held onto it as the only solid thing in the confusion.

Ginny stepped down from a table that Harry hadn't noticed just a second before. She was beautiful, almost ethereal, glowing with life. Her hair shone like copper and her brown eyes flashed strangely; she moved with a blatant sensuality that didn't look quite right, for whatever reason. She didn't usually walk like that (he thought?), hips rocking, breasts jiggling unbound beneath her flimsy shirt. Something seemed off… Hadn't she just been standing next to him?

She stopped before him, lips red as blood. “I'm done, Harry,” she said coldly. “I'm tired of holding you up.”

Harry tried to respond — his mouth was numb. “What?”

“Supporting you, Harry. Waiting and waiting for you to pull your head out of your arse and give me what _I_ need, but no… It's all about you, isn't it?” she said disdainfully. “You treat me like a little sister for years, then decide that you'd rather fuck me now that it's convenient. You've put my whole family in danger, but that wasn't enough for you, was it? You needed me, too, for a little extra comfort. How hard did you _really_ try to leave me behind? I wouldn't have come if I'd known you'd just be selfish again. I don't know why I bothered.”

The words flayed him like whips, stripping him of his defences. “But— I thought… What about all you said before, what about—”

“This?” Ginny simpered, running her hands down her body. “Or maybe just these?” She lifted her shirt to reveal her firm, high breasts, nipples stiff and pebbled in the sudden cold. “You think getting close makes you special? As if you're the first bloke I've shared a bed with, and you won't be the last. There are loads of other boys out there who will give me what I want. There are loads who already _have._ Stop acting like I need you.”

He could barely speak. Even as his heart shattered his mind was stuck in a mire, moving at quarter-speed. “But… I…”

“You can't even defend yourself when you know it's true. But don't worry about me, Harry. Once I'm back at Hogwarts and line up a bloke or two, I won't tell them about us. I wouldn't want to embarrass mysel—”

She was cut off when, without warning, a chair swung out from somewhere to Harry's right and smashed her to the floor. The moment she hit the ground the murkiness seemed to dissipate from Harry's brain, and he turned to see who held the makeshift weapon.

It was Ginny, the _real_ Ginny, dressed in the proper clothes Harry remembered. She was flushed red, almost shaking with rage. _“Fuck off, slag!”_ she snarled.

Harry looked across the table; his vision was still severely limited, but he could hear someone talking. It sounded like Ron, though Harry had never heard that tone from his friend before.

“Ron, _please!”_ Hermione cried out, tears in her voice.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!” Ron roared, and it sounded like the real Ron. Harry hoped he was dispelling the locket's hold as Ginny had.

“It's having a go at everybody!” Ginny said angrily. She dropped the chair and drew her wand. “Harry, if it gets me, just give me a good slap!”

He shook his head. “I think we just have to get rid of this damn fog—”

And just like that, the mist disappeared.

Scott was still standing right where he had been. He looked calmly out at his dazed friends and at the locket, which was emitting a sickly purple light.

“Sorry that took so long,” he said in a voice that didn't sound especially sorry, “I didn't understand what it was doing. It's working on me, now.”

They regrouped. Ginny took a deep breath, embarrassed in the aftermath of her fury (and probably by the way the locket had presented her). Hermione was wiping tears off her cheeks and Ron stood by her, his face contorted with anger.

Harry had seen enough. He was marching forward to kill the bloody locket good and proper when Scott held out a hand to stop him.

“Wait,” Scott requested. “I want to understand this thing better. It could be important.”

“If it grabs you, I'm going to kill it,” Harry said.

“I know. But this is really something…”

Images began to flash from the locket. They were blurry projections, half-formed and too rapid to sort out. Harry was left only with impressions: pine trees covered in snow, a beach under heavy clouds, a fallow cornfield in autumn. None of it made much sense.

“What are you looking for?” Scott said again. His eyes were distant.

The images stopped. The light from the locket started to take new form, shifting into a human shape. Soon, Tom Riddle stood on the table, staring down at Scott. It was an older Riddle than the diary; not quite Voldemort, not still the same young man. His skin was pale and his eyes had a red tint to them that spoke of things to come.

Scott snapped back to focus. “Giving up?” he asked.

“Not quite,” the echo of Riddle said, his voice high and clear. “What are you?”

Scott's answer was even less forthcoming than usual. “Another mystery in a world full of them.”

Riddle's eyes burned. “I've solved many, and answered questions others were too afraid to ask.”

Scott shrugged. “I'll allow for the possibility. Be real, though: you don't have that kind of time.”

“Don't pretend to understand my capabilities.”

“Same to you. Being only a fraction of a person, I presume you're limited to this smoke and laser show.”

Riddle fell silent, apparently struck by Scott's knowledge of his creation. When he spoke again, he tried a different tact. “If you know what I am, then you know what I have to offer.”

“Dick,” Scott assessed.

Riddle glanced contemptuously at the others. “I gather this is the 'resistance'. Freedom fighters to themselves, mere nuisances in truth. What do _they_ have to offer someone who can do what you can?”

“Are you suggesting an alternative?”

“I have use for power. It _should_ be used, and expanded… We could come to an agreement, mutually beneficial.”

Scott shrugged again. “Maybe. Either way, that would be something to bring up with the real you. Stuck in a locket is not a great position for negotiation.”

“Take me to him. Be rewarded.”

“With what?”

“The key to immortality,” Riddle promised.

Scott smiled. “Way ahead of you. Harry?”

Harry slammed the sword through the locket. The segment of Riddle's soul howled in agony as the purple light grew too dazzling to look at. An explosion rang out, the force of it ripping the sword from Harry's grip and sending a painful jolt up his arm. Then the light vanished as if a switch had been flipped.

In the middle of the table was a bubbling puddle of melted metal, rapidly cooling as it steamed and fused to the surface.

Scott broke the ensuing silence. “Last time I saw something like that, I'd just decapitated a Sith.”

“Is everyone all right?” Hermione asked. Her eyes were still red-rimmed, but her voice was steady.

“Fine,” Harry said as he surreptitiously rubbed at his hand.

“You're hurt,” Ginny said accusingly, noticing his distress.

“Just a bit of a shock. No more than a bruise.”

She took the hand and prodded his palm with her fingers, frowning when he couldn't suppress a wince. “We need to talk,” she said, relinquishing the appendage.

“I'm telling you, it's fine, it just aches—”

“Not about that!”

“About… Oh. Do we have to do that tonight?” Harry said plaintively.

“Yes! I'm not letting you brood about what that thing said until you push me away again,” she insisted.

“I wouldn't do that,” he said unconvincingly. In truth, the process had probably already begun.

She didn't even bother getting angry; she just rolled her eyes at him. “Right, Harry.”

“He's not hurt bad if he's already telling jokes,” Ron said from across the table.

Scott waved towards the stairwell. “Big night all around. Way past our bedtimes. Discuss whatever you like, but do it upstairs.”

“Why? Are you going to tuck us in?” Ron scoffed.

“Do I need to?” Scott asked with equal bite. “Or are you old enough to know when to sleep?”

“All right, don't get shirty, _Dad_ ,” Ron grumbled. He put an arm around Hermione and led her towards the stairs.

Harry followed them reluctantly. He was dreading what he knew was going to be a painfully emotional talk with Ginny. If he had it his way, he'd just bury the whole thing until it went away.

But he knew she wouldn't let him.


	12. Truth of Sequence

**12**

**Truth of Sequence**

\---

_“Relativity teaches us that simultaneity is an  
illusion; that, as there are no privileged points  
of reference, all observations of time are equally  
valid. There is no absolute truth of sequence:  
all we can do is equate.  
  
The shape tells us otherwise, depending on the  
form it is given (or perhaps chooses). That  
in itself is a valuable lesson, for by coming to  
accept that there are worlds in which not  
even causality is fixed we must at last learn  
that it is not only time and opinion which are  
subjective, but in fact the entirety of reality.  
Each universe creates its own structure,  
follows no rules but its own. That they appear  
so similar in our experience may be the  
greatest misperception of all: the most dire  
overcognizants speak of things we dismiss as  
impossible ravings, but someday we may realize  
that when we looked out into the multiverse, we  
found only what we were capable of understanding.  
  
The difference between truth and lie is of the  
beholder and no truth can ever be complete,  
whatever the intention behind it.”_

                        —Dr Joseph Carnahan, _New Constellations_  

\--- 

It had been about an hour since the locket had been destroyed. Harry was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. There was nothing interesting about the wall, but his head was swimming, and the blank surface didn’t offer any further distractions. The traumas of the night were stacked on top of each other, and it was a small mercy that remembrance of a man’s head disintegrating was temporarily blotted out by Locket-Ginny expressing what he feared was absolute the truth.

‘Small mercy’… Who was he fooling? The more recent horror was far worse than yet another witnessed death in a long line of them.

The real Ginny was in the shower. Her ablutions were giving Harry time to think, the last thing he needed. And, once she returned, she would be determined to discuss what the locket had done. He didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to forget it ever happened. Confronting emotional problems was well outside his comfort zone. Too bad the locket had understood at least one avenue to his wounds.

A shadow fell across the doorway. “Are you all right?” Hermione asked tentatively, leaning in.

“No,” Harry said honestly.

She sighed. “Well… that’s not good, but I still prefer forthrightness to your usual avoidance.”

“How about you?”

“Same as always: fearful, anxious and building up a nice store of post-traumatic stress for when this is all over,” she said.

“Just be glad you didn’t go into the house with Scott,” he said dryly.

She flinched slightly. “Yes… I'd wondered if you weren’t making a mistake.”

Harry clung to the shreds of his stoicism. “I have to get used to it sometime.”

“Oh, Harry. I hope not, for your sake,” she said sorrowfully.

He just wanted to change the subject. “Did you need something?”

She hesitated. “I felt you might be discouraged, seeing as that was the only Horcrux we've had to destroy thus far. I wanted to remind you that we aren’t entirely without clues.”

“It’s not much good to know what something is if we don’t know _where_ it is.”

“I have to disagree. In this case, knowing 'what' may very well lead us to 'where'.” She stepped closer. “Scott told us there may be a Horcrux to the north. That’s not specific, but I'd wager he could tell us more if we were nearer. And you said you wanted to go to Godric’s Hollow?”

He did, and had for some time. He’d never seen the place that could have been his home, or visited his parents’ graves. “I still do.”

“I’m sure you’ve considered the danger. But, I’ve discovered another reason to go.” She was clearly excited by whatever she had to say. “Did you ever read _A History of Magic_?”

‘Read’ was a strong word. “Sort of.”

She gave him a disapproving glance, but continued, “Bathilda Bagshot, the author, is still alive — and she lives in Godric’s Hollow! We’re hunting for historical artefacts of magic, and I can’t think of anyone more qualified on the subject.”

Harry didn’t allow himself to feel much hope, but Hermione was right. It could be a real breakthrough. “We have to try, anyway.”

She beamed at him. “Exactly! We’ll start planning soon.” She turned to go, and then stopped. “Oh, and Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do talk to Ginny about what happened tonight. Don’t let it fester.”

“Are you going to make Ron talk?” Harry asked accusingly.

“Of course!”

“Then I guess we’re both buggered,” he muttered.

Hermione left him, and he returned to his contemplation of the wallpaper.

His mind wandered. The patterns on the wall became Ginny, scorning him, rejecting him. As he had rejected her, and not just recently. He'd ignored her for years. He had turned from her attentions without even knowing it. He was tormented by the idea that such unknowing (uncaring) disregard was worse than a conscious decision. It was as if she hadn’t even been worth the finality of a proper rejection. He had strung her along instead, breaking the young heart she had placed in his careless hands.

Perhaps what the locket had shown him was cruel, but just. He’d pushed her away without trying, and then at last drawn her close only to push again. How could she be blamed if she left? Even Ginny had to take a hint eventually. Even her stubbornness could only cushion her spirit so many times.

He shook his head so hard that stars burst into his vision. The thoughts were more than he could stomach; he fought against them, wiping his clammy palms on his trousers as if he could wipe away the very idea. Then, without warning, he was ambushed by a memory:

**_The door splintered, broken by the inhuman force of the kick. It would have rebounded off the interior wall had Scott not been in the way, shouldering through with shotgun raised. The Death Eater on the right barely had time to react. He swivelled in his chair, cards falling from his fingers. The gun barked, acute and deafening. As if an invisible hand had struck him, he recoiled in the chair, jolting back against it before beginning to slump forward. The robes at his chest shredded, turning to dust and whirling scraps. Blood flew out of the hole over his heart. He fell against the table, unmoving._ **

**_He had not fully come to rest when the second Death Eater was shot in the head. This time, the robes concealed little — his hood fell off with the impact. The tightly-grouped buckshot, each the size of a musket ball, hit at the corner of his right eye. His cheekbone caved in, flesh splitting away from the collapsing eye socket. When the leaden wad tore through his brain and smashed against the rear of his skull, his head snapped back with such force that blood spattered across the ceiling._ **

**_Scott continued without hesitation. The limp corpse was sliding off the chair and thudding on the floor when he stepped forward and tugged the tablecloth off the end where it had been shunted, apparently in the way of the Death Eater’s card playing._ **

**_“Go out and stall the others for a second. They don’t need to see this,” Scott said._ **

**_And Harry did? He supposed he had volunteered._ **

**_The last sight before he stepped out was of Scott using the corner of the tablecloth to sweep brain and skull fragments from the wall._ **

“Harry?”

He snapped out of it at the sound of Ginny’s voice. “Y-yeah?” he stammered. He realised his heart was racing.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” She touched his forehead with one hand, still warm and damp from the shower. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

He laughed shortly. “Just in the head, maybe.”

Her mouth thinned. When she sat next to him, he noticed with a start that she was wearing one of his old grey t-shirts. It hung down to her thighs before giving way to her long, slender legs. They were marred with scratches, a legacy of her insistent bravery.

She noticed his scrutiny, and rolled her eyes sheepishly. “I stole your shirt,” she confessed. “I didn’t pack much in the way of pyjamas.”

He was fine with that. Probably a little _too_ fine. “I don’t mind, that’s how I usually sleep.”

“In a shirt and knickers?” she said impishly.

“The bloke version,” he said wryly.

Her countenance sobered. “I know we’re both tired, but I think we need to talk now, even if just for a bit.”

He tried not to look overly reluctant, though he was sure he didn’t pull it off.

“Were you thinking about what the locket said to you?” she asked.

“No, not when you came in,” he said truthfully.

She gave him a doubtful look. “You looked upset.”

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “…I was thinking about the Death Eaters tonight.”

She took his hand. “Do you want to talk about that?”

He could talk about getting psychically violated by a piece of Voldemort’s soul, or watching two men die in a terrible, if mercifully quick, fashion. Why wasn’t going to bed an option?

The silence stretched out between them as he endeavoured for an answer. Ginny’s grip on his hand tightened until she finally burst out, “Come on, Harry! I saw what you did, don’t pretend it didn’t bother you!”

“I know it wasn’t really you, Gin.”

“Of course you do, you aren’t completely daft! That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt!” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed in some mixture of affection and frustration. “I don’t want you to torture yourself thinking any of that shite was true, and I _know_ that if I leave you alone, you will.”

“I did try to push you away, though, I was a complete twat to you—”

“Good job,” she snorted.

He had to concede the point. “I guess I’m not that convincing.”

She didn’t laugh. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. Then she wiggled her way around until she was straddling his lap, holding him as close as possible. “I’m going to hug you. It will make this easier,” she said, her breath fanning against his neck.

That was foreboding enough to dampen his arousal. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“When I first met you… it was like something out of all the books I loved,” she said softly, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “You were a hero, a legend. I couldn’t believe you were there at the station, and then you were there at breakfast…”

“I don’t remember that well,” Harry admitted. “It seems so long ago—”

“I know you don’t remember. That was the problem. I was in awe. Ron was your friend and I thought maybe I could be, too; I might become more than just the little sister. Then you saved me in the Chamber. I thought I was in love after that.” She sighed. “So I pined away in my dormitory like some ridiculous princess. I wrote bad poetry, some of which you heard, unfortunately. I lived for the moment when you would see me in the hall and think I was beautiful, or interesting, or anything other than a nobody.”

Harry had to interrupt, he couldn’t stand it. “You were always beautiful and interesting.”

“Not enough for you to notice me. But it’s not like I had anyone to blame but myself; I barely spoke to you at all. Did you know there was even a time when I hated Hermione? The two of you were so close, I thought it was her fault no one else had a chance.”

“We were never like that!” he objected.

“I _know_ , Harry! I’m pouring my heart out here, can you stop interrupting?”

“Sorry.”

She took a deep breath. “Looking back, I should have known better. It wasn’t the other girls I couldn’t compete with: it was your life. I was heartsick when you asked Parvati to the Ball, and it was so much worse when I found out it could have been me, that it nearly had been. But then nothing came of it; she couldn’t compete with the Triwizard Tournament, either. I think that was when I started to come to my senses. I thought you wouldn’t see me no matter what I tried. I even asked Hermione about it earlier that year, if I could ever have the slightest chance. She told me I had to be myself more, be less shy, because you would never notice how I was around you, and, even if you did, you wouldn’t understand why.”

She was killing him; it was more than he could stand. He would do _anything_ to take it back, to give her what she deserved. Everything the locket had said, everything he had been thinking before she had entered to the room, it was all true. He had been a monster long before he had got Sirius killed, long before Tom Riddle had possessed his mind. He really was The Boy Who Lived, the fucking Chosen One, marching down the road of destiny, heedless of the ants beneath his feet. Everyone around him was a casualty. He inflicted pain without even having to try.

The anguish made him forget his previous apology. “It’s on me, all of it, you were always right in front of me and I’m so bloody self-absorbed—”

 ** _“Harry!”_** she yelped, tightening her arms until he couldn’t breathe.

“Sorry,” he wheezed.

“…So, I came out of my shell. I stopped hiding behind my hair, I made friends, boys noticed me. It felt good. I felt… _relieved_ to know I wasn’t completely unattractive, that boys could like me—”

“Unattractive?” he said incredulously. Was she serious? Was there no limit to the damage he had done? “Ginny, you are sodding gorgeous, you are—”

She slapped a hand over his mouth. “Thank you, Harry, but you’re my boyfriend and I’m sitting on you wearing your shirt and a pair of knickers, so you’re just a bit biased. But, thank you.”

“I just hate that I ever made you feel that way,” he said when she removed her hand.

“You never meant to. Anyway, you know most of the rest. I started dating. I liked the attention and found out snogging was fun, but… I tried to convince myself I was over you. I tried to replace you even though I’d never had you, and still no one else measured up. And for a short while, I thought I should hate you. I’d stopped chasing you and you were _still_ in my head, this schoolgirl fantasy I couldn’t get rid of. But by then, I was your friend, too. I couldn’t hate you. And when I started to get to know you as a person, it didn’t ruin that want, it just got even worse, it was more _real_. But you were just out of reach. With Dean, I thought maybe I finally was, too.” She pulled back and looked in his eyes. “It didn’t work.”

“Thank God,” Harry said, caught in her gaze.

“That night after the game, when we kissed — I didn’t plan it. I know you didn’t, either, it just happened. And then we were together like we always had been.” She laughed in disbelief. “It’s strange, isn’t it? We barely even discussed it.”

He remembered. That night had been full of heat and noise, the merriment almost overwhelming. He’d gone upstairs to escape the press, and Ginny had followed. She’d congratulated him, he her, and then when silence had fallen between them it had been about the only thing — they’d been standing close. The pull had been magnetic; Ginny’s hair had hung in wonderful tangles, her lips slightly parted, her skin flushed. She had smelled like the outdoor air and flowers. They’d come together as if there were no other outcome.

He suspected Lila’s interference, somehow.

“We did later. But right then we didn’t need to, I thought,” Harry said.

“Don’t start second guessing that kiss, it was perfect,” Ginny ordered, unaware she was already too late. She slid her hands back and rubbed at the tension in his shoulders. “Don’t stress, Harry. I didn’t tell you all that so you could beat yourself up about it.”

She was too late for that, also. “Then…?”

“Because you need to understand what a load of utter bollocks that locket-me was spewing!” she said with an anger that didn’t seem to have faded since the Horcrux’s destruction.

“Oh, right. That,” Harry said. Ginny’s story had been wrenching enough for him to forget there was probably a point to it.

“I want _you_ , Harry. I always have, even when I tried so hard to ignore it,” she said. “I’ve never blamed you for the danger my family is in; we _chose_ to fight back. I _chose_ to be here with you, even when you didn’t want me to. And it’s not as if I’m the only one supporting you! Everyone should if they aren’t a load of evil wankers.”

Harry was unable to absolve himself so easily. “But—”

She cut him off again. “I don’t want to hear it! We can fight about your guilt later. As for the other rubbish that thing said, and did…”

He recalled it all quite vividly. The breasts he had been taunted with were currently pressed against him.

“I can’t believe it just lifted up my shirt like that, I was **_so_** angry. Good thing for that fog, I don’t think anyone else saw…” She breathed hard through her nose, eyes flinty. “I have never shared a bed or anything else with other boys. I dated two, neither of which got anything more than a snog and that’s _all_. That bloody locket took my face and made me out to be some sort of super slag!” she raged.

“None of it seemed right,” he reassured her. “I never thought you were a slag, even when I saw you with Dean. I just wished you were mine.”

He must have said the right thing: she melted back against him.

He blinked, his eyelids heavy. Confessions were exhausting, even when they weren't coming from him. “Are you as tired as I am?”

“I’m already half-asleep,” she mumbled into his shoulder, going deliciously limp in his arms. “I talked myself out.”

He lay back, swinging his legs up on the bed and settling her beside him, where she immediately draped a warm arm over his torso. He opted to leave his trousers on, feeling it was safer that way, and he needed them to make his erection less obvious. Maybe he wouldn’t be so self-conscious someday.

“…Harry?” Ginny said sleepily.

“Yeah?”

“My tits are much nicer than that. Bloody locket didn’t get _anything_ right.”

It was comforting to know the Horcrux hadn’t taken that first away from them. “I believe it.”

***---~**~---***  

Sophie waited until Kylie was fast asleep before she left the room. The girl had been suffering night terrors, panicked dreams that often kept her from slumber. Another human presence seemed to calm her. Hopefully, her resumption of speaking was a sign of recovery.

Sophie had kept Kylie upstairs, well away from the Horcrux. She didn’t know exactly what had happened in the kitchen, but the locket had been a dark vortex in the shape once activated, and she had felt it being snuffed out. Whatever came next, she understood her own role in it. She had begun creating a mental plan for cleaning the house, as well as a few organisational rearrangements for defensive purposes. The singular point of ground floor entry made her job easier.

She disliked the dim the hallway she stepped out into, closing Kylie’s door behind her. She liked her dwellings brightly lit, spacious and well furnished. Her career had forced her to learn to live without any of those attributes from time to time, but had not changed her preferences. She wrinkled her nose at the candle holders she passed. Candles could be romantic and atmospheric, but they were such low-lumen alternatives to what she considered conventional lighting.

The doors for the rooms of both pairs of Primes were closed. Harry and Ginny’s was dark. A sliver of light emanated from the crack beneath Ron and Hermione’s door, along with muffled voices. They must have had something to discuss, perhaps related to the Horcrux.

Sophie descended the staircase with the intention of going to the kitchen and seeing if everything was still intact. She found Scott sitting on the landing between the first and second floor, beneath the disgusting, mummified elf heads mounted to their grimy plaques. From his position he had a clear line of sight to the front door, which was what she assumed he'd wanted, but his head was back against the wall and his eyes were closed. He had his shotgun resting across his knees. She hesitated, debating whether or not to disturb him.

Her indecision was made irrelevant when he spoke, eyes still closed. “Is Kylie asleep?”

“She is,” Sophie said. She walked down the last few steps and sat next to him. “How did it go?”

“It’s dead. And melted to the table, if you can believe it. It was dangerously manipulative; not surprising, considering it’s a reflection of its maker, but whatever damage it did is a concern. I’m counting on the girls to take care of things. I know Ginny will, but I hope Hermione will talk to Ron.”

“Do you want me to talk to her? If it was a personal attack, maybe she would be more comfortable speaking to another woman.”

“Ginny, first, over either of us, but Hermione would actually be more comfortable talking to me. I mean, she won’t be comfortable with _anyone_ , if the locket went where I think it did, but I think I could make her talk to me. We have an interesting dynamic.”

Sophie had seen a little of that. “She seems like the most difficult Prime.”

Scott made a face. “Yes, and no. She demands oversight, but understands necessity.”

Sophie nodded in silent agreement before remembering that his eyes were still closed. She looked down the dark hallway towards the door. “Do we need to take shifts tonight?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. No, I was just sitting down for a minute.”

She studied him more closely. His straw blond hair had grown out since she had last seen him, falling closer to his eyebrows and the tops of his ears. She traced the lines of his elegant, angular face with its strong chin, lean cheeks and straight-edged nose set above his wide, firm mouth. He had a raw-boned handsomeness, sharp and male. The low light nearly hid the stubble dotting his features. He smelled like gun oil, flannel and warm masculinity. She wanted to kiss him.

She shook herself and glanced away in silent embarrassment. That attraction had been present from the moment she had met him, and had grown with time. But, in that time, she had also become his close friend and comrade (familiarity had not lessened the pull; it only added an emotional component). Sometimes she felt like they were gradually moving towards something more.

While she greatly enjoyed his physical appearance, she was not blind to what was currently detracting from it. His skin had the wan pallor of fatigue, and dark circles hung beneath his eyes.

“Scott, when was the last time you slept?” she asked.

His response was slow in coming. “…A couple days. We’ve been busy, and I’ve been watching that charm. Also…”

“Yes?” she pressed.

“The shape has been distracting. I don’t know, I should sleep, this is stupid. I’m keyed up.”

She sat up in alarm. “You’ve been taking c-stims?!” she gasped. He had never relied on the debilitating enhancers before.

“I was just using the expression! It’s a figure of speech!” He looked at her with annoyance, but she was just glad to see the alertness in his gaze.

She settled back against the wall. “How long were you planning on burning out?”

“I wasn’t. I just couldn’t sleep before, I didn’t trust this house.”

“I’m here now, you don’t have to worry,” she said gently.

He favoured her with a tired smile. “I know. Thank you for coming.”

She winked at him. “I was ordered to.”

“And there are so many fringe benefits,” he yawned, stretching in an exaggerated manner intended to highlight his musculature.

That was more true than she would ever admit. “And the locale is so grand, too.”

He grimaced, glancing up at the preserved heads. “It’s better than forward observation. Plumbing is always a plus.” He sighed, taking in his surrounds with weary eyes. “Talk to me, Sophie.”

She placed her hands on her thighs and rocked back and forth idly, not sure what he wanted to hear. “We are talking…”

“How are we doing?”

He looked so worn out sitting there that it sent a deep ache of empathy through her. She couldn’t help herself — she reached over and took his large calloused hand in both of hers, trying to impart comfort. Scott was not an especially tactile person. He didn’t seem to have a very strong aversion to touch, but rarely sought it out. She had always taken it upon herself to bridge the gap with friendly gestures of affection. Her vast family tree had given her a fondness for contact with those she held dear. And Scott, for all his singularity, had never pulled away.

“Did the locket show you something?” she said carefully.

“It tried. I don’t think it was equipped to show our deepest fears. Few things can express something that abstract. But it knew how to get under Harry’s skin.”

“What did it tell him?”

“I don’t know. I just know how he looked afterwards.”

“I think you’re doing great,” she said, switching back to his original question. “You integrated for a whole year and now you’re fighting back. You guys even just destroyed a Priority Object, that’s awesome!”

“It’s a start. But the Primes can’t maintain the pace, it’s brutal. They aren’t trained to handle a battle every night.” He rubbed at his eyes and yawned again. “I should talk to Lil.”

“You should go to sleep,” she retorted.

“I guess.”

She patted her lap. “Here, lay down.”

His eyebrows shot up and his gaze crawled towards the apex of her thighs. “You’re inviting me to…?”

She blushed and brought her knees together, blocking access. “No!”

“So I _can’t_ use you as a pillow?”

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” she said petulantly. “That is _not_ what you meant.”

He slumped over and dropped his head on her lap, going limp. “Ahhhh… I always knew your thighs were the gates to heaven,” he said sleepily.

“Shut up, Scott,” she said fondly.

***---~**~---***  

It hadn’t taken very long for Lila to regret allowing Molly use of the phone. The problem was that she would have regretted it equally, if not more, had she denied the worried mother.

The result of Molly’s high-decibel ‘conversation’ with her daughter had been the predictable demand that Lila go and retrieve Ginny immediately. In response, Lila could have lied. She could have promised to try, or to bring up the subject with Harry. But the truth was more convenient — if also more damaging, as the truth often was. She had advised Molly that she was unable to bring Ginny back home. Molly had pressed for reasons, and Lila had provided none. When Molly had declared that she would go and find Ginny herself, Lila had coolly informed her that could not be allowed (it was also impractical, due to Scott’s tampering with the Fidelius).

Consequently, Molly was no longer speaking to her. Arthur seemed to understand the situation a bit better, but intellect alone could not overpower a father’s fear. He had little to say to Lila, as well.

That was disappointing on a personal level, if not particularly relevant to the mission. Lila’s past few days had consisted of watching a family who didn’t understand her presence and listening in when Order members arrived to speak with Bill and Arthur. She had little to report back to Scott; the Order was still scattered and trying to consolidate. The felling of the Ministry had stripped the resistance of its main avenues of information. No one seemed to know what was happening outside of the safehouses.

So she waited. And — in such close quarters, without the distraction of a wedding — she had been forced to refuse questions instead of avoiding them. That made her presence increasingly inexplicable, and it was hurting her integration. Simply being Scott’s sister who lived nearby no longer sufficed.

Even Charlie’s interactions with her had been muted by wariness. He hadn’t appeared to mind not knowing much about her before, perhaps looking forward to the opportunity to _get_ to know her, but once it became clear that the rest of his family didn’t know her either, he had found cause for concern. She sort of wished she hadn’t used a gun during the escape from the wedding. The safety of the Weasleys had come before her secrets.

It was Bill who posed the greatest challenge. He had confronted her several times, frustrated by her refusal to level with him. It had not yet reached the point where he demanded that she leave. She was not a Secret Keeper, and therefore no threat to the house if ejected (or so he thought), and perhaps her efforts to protect his family had made an impression on him despite his distrust.

She needed to change her approach. Full disclosure was not an option, and might never be. Answering select questions could buy her the time she needed to reaffirm her loyalty; the Order would recognise her worth in the field once they ventured out.

She stood at the side of Shell Cottage, watching the waves roll towards the shore. The charm which concealed the dwelling loomed over her in the shape. It extended much further than she had expected. She wondered what might happen if she severed her own connection to the Fidelius. Would she become blind to her surroundings? Concealing what stood right in front of her would require magic to attack and impair her cognition. She should be able to resist.

The question would remain rhetorical, as she needed the link. It might only be answered if she visited Scott’s safehouse without invitation.

She sighed and crossed her arms beneath her substantial breasts, lifting them and taking the weight off her too-tight brassiere. The fitted garment was designed for combat, supporting her prodigious bust in situations of great motion and impact. It had shrunk in the wash, despite also being designed not to do that. Apparently, magical laundering was different. She needed to try out her other bras to see if they fit better.

That had to be, of course, the way Bill found her: lifting her breasts with one arm whilst fiddling with the support straps with the other. His eyebrows shot upwards.

She dropped her hands and favoured him with a blasé stare. “My bra shrunk. Also, considering how often you men are adjusting your tackle, I think you can let me shift my boobs around without excessive comment.”

“Entirely fair,” he agreed.

She leaned back against the wall. “What can I do for you?”

He addressed her with directness. “You could answer some questions, for a change.”

“That’s a pretty big change,” she said, unaffected.

His eyes darkened. “Look, how long do you think you can keep this up? You lied to my mum for a year, but that’s over. None of us have any idea who you are. I’m not even sure you’re a witch.”

“I’m Lila Kharan.”

“And who is that?”

She considered her reply for a moment. “Scott Kharan’s sister. We’re a team.” She glanced at Bill, but he said nothing, looking impatient for more. “We’re soldiers.”

“Mercenaries?” he said sceptically. “Who hired you?”

“We aren’t mercs. I told you, we’re soldiers,” she said stiffly.

“A sixteen-year-old and his slightly older sister. Just like all the other soldiers,” he said sarcastically. “What are you? Twenty? Twenty-two?”

She ignored his guesses. “Our talents are suited to this mission.”

“And what mission would that be?”

“Riddle is not merely a local concern,” she told him, choosing her words with extra care. “Other parties are aware that Harry must be supported.”

He took a step closer, eyes narrowing. “The American government?”

If that was what he wanted to think, then she saw no reason to disillusion him. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

He sighed. “Well, you’re going to have to tell me a little more than _that.”_

“I’m here to protect your family and assist in mission planning and execution.”

“Mission execution or _person_ execution?” he said pointedly.

“Whatever may be required.”

He stared at her, and then slowly nodded. “The thing is… I’m not in a position to turn away someone like you. The Order isn’t, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. And I know you were at Hogwarts with your brother, during the attack. So Dumbledore knew that, too.”

“Scott attended with his consent,” she said.

“Right. You explained yourself to him, but don’t feel you owe us the same courtesy. I get it.”

Lila was not impressed by the ploy. “Good. I’m glad you get it.”

Bill laughed without amusement. “I really don’t know what to make of you. I’ll tell you one thing, though: if you betray my family, you won’t live long enough to collect whatever reward was promised.”

She rolled her eyes. “Save your threats for the enemy. Or at least someone you can intimidate. Most men don’t have prettier hair than me.”

This time, he laughed genuinely. “Just so we understand each other — it’s customary! You’ve killed enough Death Eaters that I doubt you’re on the other side. I just wonder if you’re on _our_ side. But…” His expression sobered. “We need all the help we can get. And Harry, even more.”

“What we do, we do to ease his path,” she said quietly.

“I understand if you don’t trust me entirely, as well.”

“I do trust you. In time, perhaps with more. Not everything is mine to tell.”

“Harry seems to trust your brother,” Bill said. “I doubt he knows as little as me.”

“Harry is privileged. How often did Dumbledore confide in you?” Lila asked pointedly.

“You aren’t Dumbledore.”

“We ran in the same circles. We had an understanding.”

“That I believe,” Bill stated. “Anything else you’d like to share?”

She looked away. “Ask me again later.”

“Count on it.” He turned to go and then stopped. “Oh, one more thing — don’t hurt my brother. He still fancies you, so at least do me a favour and let him down gently.”

“I haven’t led him on.”

“I know, that’s why I’m not angry.”

“He hasn’t pushed the issue. If he wants to be direct, then so will I.” Lila wasn’t willing to simply reject Charlie outright. His attraction to her might still be of use, and it was fun, too.

“If it’s all the same to you, then, I’ll keep trying to talk him out of it.”

“Do what you want,” she said indifferently.

After he left, she stared at the ground and wondered how long her minor admissions would suffice. She had briefly considered bringing up the topic of Fleur, but, ultimately, Bill’s new bride was more of an annoyance than a real concern. Lila and Fleur had clashed several times during the wedding preparations, and Fleur had not forgotten it. She barely tried to hide her resentment of Lila’s presence. Lila doubted that talking to Bill about it would have accomplished much, anyway.

She was also bored. She knew that she needed to suppress the feeling if she was to advance into integration; it required many workaday things. So she did her best to stay occupied, and waited for a call from Scott or a gathering of the Order to bring new challenges her way.

She supposed she could call Strauss. The other woman wouldn’t be excessively busy tending to her similar directives, and was always up for a chat. Strauss could natter away almost endlessly when invited to, and her family connections ensured she was always full of the latest news and gossip. Lila usually had to pry the best stuff out of her, though, or infer it. Strauss was too considerate and decorous to revel in anything malicious (she sometimes made an exception in regards to certain female members of the Consistorium staff — Lila suspected that Scott factored in).

Lila filed away the option for later. She needed to return to the interior of the cottage. However, going back inside might mean facing Molly again. It had to be done at some point. Eventually the frantic mother would understand things, though it might be too soon to hope for change. Lila could rebuild burned bridges, but first the ashes had to cool.

She wished she had a better way to check on the twins. Getting to Diagon Alley was the easy part (not that apertures were ever easy). It was more difficult to return before her departure was noticed. She knew that if her method of travel was revealed, Molly would insist that it be used to retrieve Ginny, which would in turn lead to a plethora of facts that Lila had no desire to disclose. Explaining that not only was she unwilling to take Ginny through an aperture, but literally _unable,_ would result in questions about the shape and Primes and a million other things that the Weasleys didn’t need to know.

Lila desired to end her feud with Molly, not create an entirely new mess with unneeded revelations. Regrettably, any missions with the Order could end the same way if Lila were forced to utilise any of her more unusual abilities. That was a problem that would have to be faced when it arose; other problems had to be faced more immediately. She took pride in her reputation for not shirking confrontation. With that in mind, she strode into the cottage to being repairing her integration.

The small sitting room was where Molly spent most of her time. The Weasley matriarch alternated between knitting, sewing and staring with desperate worry at the family clock. Lila was not unsympathetic. But to end Molly’s torment was to end the war, and the only way out was through. There had to be some part of her which knew that. She just stood to lose too much. Perhaps it would help if Lila reaffirmed her dedication to preventing such loss.

Molly did not look up from her knitting when Lila seated herself in a nearby rocking chair. Her face was drawn, and the stiff movements of her hands were a far cry from her usual skill. She tore at the yarn, fraying it.

“We need to talk,” Lila said evenly.

Molly’s reply was terse. “I don’t believe we have anything to talk about.”

Lila went ahead and rolled her eyes; Molly wasn’t looking at her, anyway. “That’s obviously not true.”

“I tried talking to you before and you wouldn’t listen, I don’t see the point now.”

“I did listen. You were being unreasonable.”

Molly’s knitting needles clacked together loudly. “‘Unreasonable’?” she bit out. “It was _unreasonable_ to ask you to bring my daughter home? It was _unreasonable_ to think a sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be out on her own, fighting Dark wizards?”

“Under these particular circumstances, yes.”

“I don’t care!” Molly snapped. “You’ve done nothing but lie to me, and then refused to lift a finger when I needed your help! I don’t even know who you are.”

“You know me, Molly. I’m still Lila.”

“No, I don’t think I do. So please, leave me be.”

“No.”

 _“No?!”_ Molly nearly shouted.

“Not until we settle this.”

“Unless you can produce Ginny, I can’t imagine that happening.”

“Scott is protecting her,” Lila reminded.

“ _Scott?_ ” Molly said incredulously. “Your younger brother? Are you trying to reassure me?”

“He has the same training I do,” Lila told her, omitting the fact that he had significantly more.

Molly waved her hand, as if brushing away Scott as a topic worthy of discourse. “I can barely accept that Dumbledore left this task, whatever it may be, in the hands of children, _my_ children, I surely don’t pretend to know what the man was thinking,” she said in an angry, rapid cadence. “I know that Harry will look out for Ginny and they think they’re in love, but if I have no choice with Ron and Harry and Hermione — if I ever have, with all the trouble they get into — then at least they’re of age!”

“Ginny chose to accompany them.”

“That’s not a choice she can make! I am her mother and I want her _here!”_ Molly said with an edge of hysteria. “The only reason I haven’t gone to get her myself is because I don’t know where she is!”

“Neither do I,” Lila said. Technically, it was true.

“Stop lying to me!” Molly demanded. “You rang your brother on that Muggle wireless!”

“It’s just a number. It could connect to anywhere.”

“Then you talk to Scott and tell him to tell you.”

“That won’t help you. I won’t be a Secret Keeper.”

“Then he can tell me!”

“I don’t think he will. They have reasons for remaining isolated.”

“Then we have nothing to discuss,” Molly hissed, and resumed her knitting.

Lila wondered if her own reserve was creating a barrier. It could be maddening if one participating party in an argument never lost composure. Her lack of emotion might be reinforcing Molly’s perception that Lila was uncaring, without pity.

Lila didn’t have to act. She just had to loosen her rigid self-control and allow her body to reflect her emotions. “We have _a lot_ to discuss,” she said, hearing her voice roughen with temper and feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. “I have done my best to protect this family, and I know I’m not perfect, but I don’t deserve to be treated like this just because I won’t give in to your whims!”

Molly was taken aback. Lila rarely displayed any real anger, and had never raised her voice to Molly before. “Protecting my daughter is not a whim!”

“It is when you should have already realised it’s not going to happen! Ginny is with Harry and they have a job to do, and I can’t fucking change that!” Lila said forcefully.

Molly gasped. _“Lila Kharan!_ I ought to jinx your mouth shut!”

Lila actually felt slightly ashamed. “I’m sorry. But stop blaming me for things that are beyond my control. You didn’t think it was coincidence that Dumbledore left something to Ginny, did you?”

Molly looked away, a hand fluttering to her mouth. “I didn’t want to think he’d be so callous.”

“He was what he needed to be to finish this.” Not enough of what he needed to be, in Lila’s opinion.

“They’re just children…” Molly said again, almost to herself. “Why must it be them?”

They trod near truths, now, stepping too close to the shape. Lila had no wish to speak in actualities, so she generalised. “It always has been. Harry is at the centre of this, and his friends won’t leave him.”

“And he won’t come to the adults for help?” Molly smiled bitterly and wiped at her eyes. “He can’t be blamed, I suppose. We’ve never been there when he most needed us. The Tournament, the Ministry… The way the _Prophet_ treated him, those awful _Dursleys_ …” she said the name like an epithet.

“It’s difficult to trust authority when your family failed you like that,” Lila said.

 _“We_ are his family,” Molly said sharply.

That was encouraging. “I’m glad this hasn’t turned you against him.”

“Never!” Molly seemed shocked by the idea. “I don’t always agree, but he does what he thinks is right. He always has.”

“What is right is not what is easy.”

“You don't think I know that?” Molly said tightly. She closed her eyes, mouth trembling. “All I want is for them to be here, to be safe. It never seemed like so much to ask, before.”

“Your daughter is trying to _make_ things safe again.”

Molly loosed a wavering sigh. “Of course she is. Family of Gryffindors, every single one. I wish she'd come back to me. But she won't, will she. And there's nothing I can say.”

Lila leaned back in her chair and smoothed her features once more. “This will all be over someday.”

Molly looked at the family clock, its hands illustrating how grim things really were. “You’ll forgive this mother for worrying about what happens before then,” she said quietly.

“Whatever it may be, I’ll be here.”

“I know, dear. Perhaps soon you’ll tell me why.” Molly took a deep breath and set her knitting aside. “What shall we make for dinner?”


	13. Each Breath Be Blessed, Every Hour Be Stilled

**13**

**Each Breath Be Blessed, Every Hour Be Stilled**

\---

 _Time waits_  
  
_Though not with Man_  
 _Nor on Planets_  
 _Nor near the Gates_  
  
_Instead it stands_  
 _To side of view_  
 _And reaches out_  
 _With dusty hands_  
  
_A jealous grasp_  
 _Our rhythm held_  
 _Beating slowly_  
 _Behind the clasp_  
  
_By that long clock_  
 _Counting each tick_  
 _Marking each tock_  
  
_Still caught_

                                                            —Aidan Stonémarc, _1330 Long Beach, 1993_

\---

Days passed without change.

The problem, as Harry saw it, was information: they had none. They were cut off at Grimmauld Place, isolated. Their forays into the outside world had largely been rapid, violent affairs with narrow focus. They had accomplished much, but learned little. The Order hadn't a lot to offer, either, according to Lila's reports. They were trying to organise, left without resources or anyone to trust. Diagon Alley would be a death trap, Hogsmeade little better. The enemy had eyes everywhere, it seemed.

So they sat and studied and plotted, and, honestly, it was a bit of a relief. Harry usually hated inactivity, but the trauma of having the world turned upside down followed by battles in quick succession had worn him down. He needed the time to gather himself.

He spent a lot of his time fine-tuning his shotgun skills. Ginny often accompanied him, and even tried her hand at marksmanship on occasion. She didn't have the affinity for it that Harry did, and mostly went along for his company. They were not neglecting their magical skills, either. The whole group trained together, casting and covering each other, honing their wandwork in the process of teaching Sophie. It was strange to see the tiny Kharadjai woman casting without the aid of a wand (and sometimes without verbalisation or even a gesture). Her control was imperfect and, without a wand, it took her considerable time to master even simple spells; but, once she did, she was capable of doing things that Harry had never seen before.

She could send Stunners whirling around the room, accelerating and slowing them, splitting them into multiple glowing spears. She had access to the hidden workings of magic, manipulating with her innate power what a wizard would express in pages of runes and formula.

It certainly served to underscore Scott's magical incompetence. Harry had assumed that Scott would be caustic and defensive about it, and maybe he would have been in his teen form. But the fully grown Scott who sometimes sat in on their training sessions regarded Sophie's talent with an obvious pride.

“How many people could do that?” Harry had asked one time, watching as Sophie sent a Stunner into a corkscrew so fast it looked like a solid tube. When it hit the mattress, it had cut a perfect circle into the fabric.

“No more than a handful. Training helps, but what you're seeing, the way the shape is understood and then altered… It's like what makes someone a great painter or musician. It can't be taught.” Scott had smiled as Sophie sheepishly prodded at the smoking mattress. “It's part of why she joined the Praesaedius.”

“She wasn't going to before?” Harry had said. He had assumed that Sophie was a career soldier like Scott and Lila (which, come to think of it, was also an assumption).

“That's _her_ story,” Scott had stated.

“I haven't heard your story, either.”

“That's right. You haven't.”

Harry had let it go, knowing he wasn't getting any further answers.

Hermione had been absent for some of those practises. Harry was worried about her, and he knew that Ron and Ginny were, too. She spent endless hours in research, studying her books in search of information that Harry thought probably wasn't there. He doubted even Riddle had fully understood the nature of the Horcruxes when he had made his first one. The perceived reward had simply been worth the risk.

As far as Horcrux locations were concerned, Hermione had not found anything they didn't already know. Dumbledore had been thorough. Harry was all for gaining an edge, but Hermione needed to slow down. They could have to leave at a moment's notice, and they needed everyone to be well-rested. Ron was also tiring of her obsession, and could probably be counted on to do something about it soon.

Harry was sitting at the table with Ginny eating sugar-loaded cereal and discussing the best treats Honeydukes had to offer when a familiar white shape fluttered down the chimney and perched on the back of an empty chair.

“Hedwig!” Harry exclaimed with delight. The owl preened herself and allowed Harry to rub her feathered head. She dropped a folded note in front of him.

He picked it up and read:

Harry,  
I thought you might want to write to some  
of the Order members I haven't seen lately.  
They might tell you things they wouldn't  
say in front of me. At the very least, tell Lupin  
you're okay. He asks after you all the time and  
it's very annoying.

Lila  
  
P.S. I tried to tie this to your owl's leg and  
it tried to bite me. Lucky for it, I was feeling  
merciful. If it wants to carry this the whole  
way, whatever.

Lila's blunt presence permeated every line of the missive. Harry could practically hear it being read in her flat, sardonic tones.

“It's from Lila,” he explained to Ginny. He handed it to her. “She wants me to send a letter to Remus.”

Ginny read the note. “Hah! They won't talk to her, so she's going behind their backs,” she said admiringly.

“If that's what it takes, I guess. It can't be easy over there, since they don't know what we do.” He did not envy Lila's situation.

He procured some paper and a quill and was debating how to start (and getting plenty of unsolicited advice from Ginny) when Scott strode into the kitchen with Kylie close behind. He paused briefly to look at Hedwig.

“That's new,” he commented, and starting digging through one of the cupboards.

“Lila thought I could use Hedwig to contact the Order,” Harry told him.

“We thought about getting an owl of our own, once. Didn't pan out,” Scott said idly. “Kylie, you pick something. I'm tired, not hungry.”

Harry hadn't been blind to Scott's increasingly haggard appearance. “Did you sleep enough?”

“Define 'enough'.” Scott passed Kylie the cereal she had pointed at. “I slept.”

“I'm writing to Remus. Is there anything you want to tell the Order?”

“Not until we have a target for them, or vice versa.”

“I'll find out.” Harry pressed the quill to the parchment and started writing.

“From what Lil said, it sounds like they know as much as we do. Oh, and here…” Scott dug into one of his numerous pockets and produced a ballpoint pen, which he tossed at Harry. “Welcome to the twentieth century.”

Harry looked around the stone room with its wooden furnishings. “This pen is too modern for this bloody place.”

“So am I.”

Harry couldn't argue with that. Even the cutting edge of Muggle technology must have seemed obsolete to Scott. “That's you, mate, you're just too advanced for us.”

“Your sarcasm does not change the truth.”

“That you're a stuck-up git?” Ginny said.

“Exactly.”

Sophie trotted down into the kitchen, her demeanour an odd combination of sleepy and cheerful. “Good morning!” she said brightly, followed by a yawn that she hid behind one hand.

“Good morning, and, yes, I slept last night,” Scott said pre-emptively.

“Wonderful!” She helped herself to a scone. “I slept great, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn't. You sleep like the dead and are only slightly more responsive.”

Harry concentrated on his letter. It took a few moments to get the knack of using a pen again. There was no question that it offered greater ease of use. A perfect world would really be a blend of magic and science; if only the two weren't so mutually exclusive.

Although, it struck him that Scott's mobile had always worked in places where it shouldn't. Harry had always assumed that was made possible by the advanced nature of Kharadjai tech, but perhaps not. Perhaps it could be copied and adapted.

“Scott, how is it your mobile works at Hogwarts?” he asked.

Scott answered promptly, which was a nice surprise. “Because it's not a phone, it's a comunit.”

“…But you always call it a phone.”

“It saves time.”

“Not any more. What's a comunit?”

“Short answer: it uses the shape for communication and requires a Kharadjai to provide the connection. If I gave it to you, it would just be a phone.”

“You gave it to me,” Ginny pointed out.

“And I was right there, making it work,” Scott said.

“How far away could you go before it would stop?” Harry asked.

Scott shrugged. “Not very.”

“Never mind, then,” Harry said, disappointed. It seemed communicating the Kharadjai way was not a goal within reach.

“Only a Kharadjai can provide access to the shape. It's a constant limitation,” Sophie said thoughtfully as she stirred an excessive amount of butter into the bowl of porridge she was making.

“Would you like some porridge with that butter?” Scott asked, echoing Harry's observation.

“I have porridge with it,” Sophie primly replied.

Harry was about halfway through his letter (he was having trouble with the wording; he didn't want to be perfunctory with Remus, but he also didn't want to discuss his own state of mind) when Ron and Hermione came downstairs. Hermione seemed rested, which was encouraging. Ron must have prevented her from reading late into the night.

“Why, hello, Hedwig!” Hermione said, greeting the bird. Hedwig blinked in reply. “Who are you writing, Harry?”

“Remus. I'm trying to find out if the Order knows any more than we do,” Harry said.

“Ol' Mad Eye has got to have something up his sleeve, if no one else,” Ron imagined.

Remus' reply came back quickly; Hedwig returned that evening and deposited the letter in front of Harry with an expectant manner. He gave her some of the owl treats he had dug out of his trunk and read the letter out loud whilst everyone clustered around.

“'Harry,'” he read, “'Upon receiving your letter I was going to come see you directly, only to discover I no longer remember how to get to where I suspect you may be. I spoke to Bill and Nymphadora and they can't remember, either. I don't know how you managed to change the charm, if that is what's happened, but I hope you did. If this isn't your doing then the implications are troubling. Please write back as soon as you can and let me know.'” Harry paused and looked at Hermione. “Should they be able to remember anything about this place? It sounds like he knows the name, or something.”

She contemplated the question. “I'm not sure. It may be a side effect of what Scott did. He removed their access, but not their memories.”

Harry continued reading. “'We have been trying to organise, but it has been difficult. Travel is dangerous, especially as Apparition is our only quick option. There are Anti-Apparition Jinxes placed in Diagon Alley and other major areas. Be very careful where you go. Moody has disappeared — he briefly returned to his house to gather his Auror equipment and was ambushed. He managed to fight his way out and sent a message to us before he went to ground. Hopefully, we'll hear from him soon. I'm glad you wrote, Harry. We're all worried about you. I have much I would prefer to say in person. If all goes well, perhaps we can meet soon. Be safe, Remus.'”

“I don't like the comments about meeting in person. Are you sure this is from Lupin?” Scott said.

Sometimes Scott's paranoia was a bit much. “Hedwig wouldn't take a return letter from someone else,” Harry said. The owl was looking at Scott with her hackles raised, clearly indignant.

Scott stared back. “I suppose there are some benefits to an intelligent messaging system.”

The letter had been full of the kind of news Harry had been hoping not to receive. “I'd better let him know about the charm.”

He started a second, shorter letter to inform Remus that the Fidelius Charm had been altered by them and that it had been intentional. Harry also made sure to promise to stay in touch, though he didn't guarantee a meeting. He wasn't in a position to commit to much of anything.

“Scott. Scott!” Hermione was saying, trying to get his attention.

“Yeah?” Scott said, coming back from wherever he had been mentally wandering.

“I was thinking about what you said before, about a possible Horcrux up north. I was wondering if you'd had any more precognition to narrow it down?” she said hopefully.

“It's not precognition. It's perinoesis, or shape-given perception of the present,” he corrected meticulously.

Hermione didn't like being corrected. “Fine. Have you or haven't you?”

“No. Maybe if we got closer.”

“I'm sorry, I haven't felt anything like that at all,” Sophie apologised, seeing the disappointment on Hermione's face.

“I can't exactly be angry with you when I can't see the shape at all!” Hermione complained. She opened her mouth as if to say more and then closed it, a troubled expression flitting across her features.

“It has many uses, but only a few in which it is reliable,” Scott said.

“Then searching will be our last resort. We'll probably have to travel the Muggle way, unless we want to risk brooms again.”

Flying on brooms without a destination in mind — and for an indeterminate amount of time — seemed like quite a risk, indeed. “Yeah, let's take the car if we're going to do that,” Harry said.

“I thought we were going to Godric's Hollow?” Ginny said.

“We still are,” Harry confirmed. “This is just a load of maybes.”

Godric's Hollow was on Scott's maps, but they had come to the conclusion that they were almost certainly incomplete, covering those portions known to the Muggles. The wizarding population preferred a level of segregation for Statute of Secrecy purposes. That left them with a partial picture, which was better than none.

It had been decided early on that travelling by motor would be the safest way to approach the village. Hermione had discovered Bagshot's address, though if Bagshot were in hiding, perhaps behind a Fidelius of her own, then Scott would be the only chance they had of finding her. There was no guarantee that she even remained in Godric's Hollow at all. Harry was eager to find more Horcruxes, but the trip would be worthwhile for him regardless of whether they found Bagshot or not. He wanted to see his parents' graves, and the house he couldn't remember.

Perhaps Riddle wanted Harry to do that, too. Visiting a location so tied to Harry's history carried with it a bevy of perils.

The next day, Harry approached Scott with an important question. The Kharadjai was in the drawing room, intently studying the street outside through a foggy window. It was raining, and had been off and on for days. The puddles near the kerb were deep; passing cars churned up a dirty mist in their wake, tyres hissing in passage. The venture to Godric's Hollow would be a wet one.

Harry walked to the window and peered up at the overcast sky as raindrops plunked against the blurry pane. “Seen anything?” he asked Scott.

“Not yet. If they haven't narrowed it down by now, they must not know where to start. That's encouraging,” Scott said satisfactorily.

“Maybe they're just good at hiding,” Harry said pessimistically.

“It would be an uncharacteristic display of subtlety.” Scott's eyes tracked a small yellow car as it drove past. “Besides, they can't know where we're looking out of.”

“I'm just saying we shouldn't be careless.”

“I wasn't planning on it.”

Harry stepped back and sank onto the sofa. “I came to ask you something.”

“Is it something I'm not going to like?”

“Uh, I don't think so… How am I supposed to know?” Harry said with a shrug.

Scott turned away from the window. “I don't know. You could ask me for a machinegun or something.”

“Would you give me one if I asked?”

“God, no.”

“It was worth a try.” Harry moved on to his actual query. “So, if I can't have that, will you teach me to fight?”

“I thought I have been.”

“But not just shooting and plans, I mean up close. Like, punching and stuff,” Harry said eagerly.

“Punching and stuff.” Scott sighed and sat in the chair across from Harry. “Okay, first off, I can't teach you to fight like me. You aren't strong enough or fast enough and you can't be. Trying to imitate my style isn't going to get you anywhere.”

“Fine, but it's not like we have that kind of time anyway. Just teach me how to do what you did to Dudley — quick things like that.”

Scott made a few elegant jabs at the air, his hands a blur. “Yeah, joints and points. Just the good stuff, the shit that works on people who know less than you, or get caught by surprise. You'll still be in trouble if they know what they're doing, but, like you said, you don't have time to master a system.”

“But I could take on a Death Eater, right?”

“Well… How big of a Death Eater?” Scott raised his hands and dropped them. “This will be good in an emergency, but keep your distance. Your wand is what you know.”

Maybe, but Harry had begun to feel that, against Voldemort, magic might not be enough. He needed to expand his arsenal, use tools the enemy wouldn't expect. There had never seemed to be much chance of him winning a duel against the Dark Lord: only Dumbledore had been able to equal Riddle in skill and power. Harry might have had considerable power of his own, he didn't know, but if he did it was undeveloped. Riddle had decades of practise and research behind him. Harry didn't have fifty years to hone his skills. By the time he achieved parity, he would have already lost.

It was unfair to be so outmatched thanks to the directives of the Prophecy. If anyone had to be fated to kill Voldemort, it should have been Dumbledore. But, the world was stuck with Harry, so he reckoned he needed to fight dirty. Luckily, that seemed to be the only way Scott ever fought.

That truth became even more evident in the opening moments of their first impromptu sparring session. They moved aside the table in the kitchen and faced each other on the bare flagstones. Harry had suggested they find some kind of matting for the floor; Scott's reply had been that preventing pain was not instructive, which Harry felt did not bode well.

“Okay, things you need to know,” Scott began. “Forget everything you've ever seen in every martial arts movie. If you end up trading blows for minutes on end, either you both suck or you're in a fair fight, which is the last thing you want. You want to inflict as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. You want to end the fight before it has a chance to start. Every encounter is different, but the basic goal for someone at your level can be boiled down to this: get the other guy down, and then kick him until he's crippled or dead. You're going to do real damage if you can put your weight behind it. A lot of times, the fight will end up on the ground. Try not to hit the floor, but, if you do, make sure you take him with you.”

“So, you're going to be knocking me down,” Harry said, looking at the stone floor with reluctance.

“Not yet. First I'm going to show you where to hit someone, then we'll work on your footing a bit. Then I want a sandwich.” Scott tapped a finger on his throat. “Lesson one: how to make someone wish they'd been born without a neck.”

***---~**~---*** 

Hermione knew she was missing something. She just couldn't work out what that something was, and she _hated_ that feeling.

 _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ was a fascinating glimpse into wizarding lore, a rare valuable and an insight into the magical childhood she hadn't lived; but, as far as she could determine, it was nothing more. She couldn't accept that Dumbledore had given it to her simply because he had known she would appreciate it. That would have been true of most any book, and all of the other gifts bequeathed by the Headmaster had purpose.

He had not hidden her gift behind locks or passwords, which meant his intent was hidden in plain sight. The Ministry had been forced to give Ginny and Scott their gifts after failing to open them. For Hermione's, they had found no reason to withhold it at all, it seemed, which meant the answer was concealed, indeed. Hence her frustration.

Her efforts to produce a spell mimicking Scott's infrared sense had fared little better. She needed more books, especially ones with greater detail to offer on the specific spells she had found. She had already admitted to herself that she may have set her sights too high. Creating such a unique new spell, one based on a Muggle understanding of wavelengths, might well be beyond her abilities.

The others always had implicit faith in her magical acumen. But the fact remained that, no matter how clever she was, or how advanced her knowledge base had become, she was still a seventeen-year-old witch with a sixth-year education. She had already taken a great many tasks upon herself. Attempted invention might be the one she could not meet.

It was a disappointing thought. However, no matter how eager she was to solve the problem, the infrared spell had to remain a secondary priority. The Horcruxes had to be found, above all else.

With any luck, finding Bathilda Bagshot in Godric's Hollow would set them on the trail of one (or maybe even more) of the magical artefacts that Riddle had stolen for his own Dark purposes. And once they were all gone, he would be vulnerable; or as vulnerable as a powerful Dark wizard surrounded by a makeshift army could be.

“One problem at a time,” she mumbled to herself. She set aside her copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and looked at the other books surrounding her without enthusiasm. They had all failed her.

She stood, stretched, and went downstairs in search of something to clear her mind. It was a minor miracle how busy she had managed to keep in a house so detached from the outside world. But between research, training and Ron…

She flushed a little at the last thought. It was not in her nature to be aggressive in her affections, but having Ron so close at hand, and never having to look over her shoulder for parents or teachers, well… It was easy for her hormones to take control. Thus far they had limited themselves to snogging and a bit of touching over the clothes. Ron could sometimes try to push things further in the heat of the moment, but he always stopped when asked. Sleeping in the same bed had remained chaste as well, both of them in their night clothes. They tended to wake on opposite sides of the bed, as it seemed neither of them were conditioned to seek contact involuntarily (in contrast, Ginny had said she'd fallen asleep directly on top of Harry; Hermione couldn't imagine how that was comfortable). They would probably have to share a bed for some time before they grew accustomed to being held in their sleep.

She was fine with that. She was no good at rushing things. And what would her parents think of even the _current_ arrangements? Not that they would think anything at all, as for the time being they were unable to remember her… The thought saddened her all over again, as it always did. She pushed it away.

On the way downstairs she heard a racket emanating from the dining hall that had been converted into a training room. It was a common occurrence; there was always something happening in there.

 _“Wingardium Leviosa!”_ Ron was saying as Hermione walked into the room. He levitated a plate for a moment, and then lowered it back to the floor.

“Wingardium… Leviosa,” Sophie slowly repeated. She moved her hand in the approximate motions a wand would make. The plate did not move, but Sophie smiled anyway, as if she had accomplished something.

Ron cast the spell again. “You have to be precise with the flick, see…”

Kylie was also present, standing silently in the background. There had been some debate as to whether the Fidelius Charm could overpower the Trace. It had been decided that it probably would, seeing as it overrode just about everything else, but Scott had still removed the tracking spell from Kylie. Ever conscious of the unexpected, he had wanted the girl to be able to defend herself should the occasion arise, regardless of her location.

Freed from Ministry oversight, Kylie was carefully levitating a cup whilst following Ron's example. Hermione flashed back to a similar scene, years before, when Ron's role had been reversed and the future held no hint of what was to come. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She felt a pang of nostalgia, and glanced at Kylie. It seemed impossible that any of them had ever been so young.

Of course, even the trials of securing the Philosopher's Stone (which were so trivial in retrospect) had been nothing compared to the horror that ended Kylie's first year. And her second looked to be far worse.

That gave Hermione a thought. “Kylie,” she said, approaching the girl who would have soon been a second-year student, had things gone differently, “when is your birthday?”

“Sunday,” Kylie said quietly.

“Oh! We can have a party for you!” Hermione said delightedly.

Kylie wouldn't meet her eyes. “Last Sunday.”

“What?” Hermione said, aghast. “You turned twelve and didn't tell us?”

The girl hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself even smaller. “I'm sorry.”

“No, no! It's all right, it's just…” Hermione tried to think of how to phrase her disappointment. Kylie was a textbook victim of neglect and abuse, defending herself by disappearing. She never volunteered anything personal. “I'm sure Scott would like you to tell him.”

Kylie shrugged.

“I know he would,” Hermione said firmly.

“Absolutely, and happy birthday!” Sophie added. “Look at you, twelve years old! You'll be all grown up before you know it!”

In truth, Hermione didn't think Kylie had grown much at all: she was as short and thin as ever. Hermione had a feeling that the slight girl was probably destined to remain that way, though that was not certain. She herself had not possessed much figure to speak of at twelve.

Kylie scurried out of the room, hopefully to inform Scott of her birthday — though she might have been fleeing all the attention.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” Sophie said, returning to her previous task. “The spell does not exert pressure across the object. Rather, it simulates weightlessness, creating a limited separation from gravity and granting control through an energy tether… I think. Ron, could you please cast it again?”

Hermione stood back and watched, endlessly enthralled by Sophie's instinctual understanding of the very essence of magic, the shape from which it sprang. The Kharadjai was deciphering the building blocks of the spell. Even advanced spell studies could not match such a level of detail; a runic expression of the spell would have revealed the components for wand control and hovering, not how those facets worked as defined by physics.

Oh, the things Hermione might have accomplished with Sophie's help… It was crushing to realise that, should the war be favourably resolved, she would likely never see Sophie again.

Ron cast the spell and the plate rose once more. It climbed a few feet before Sophie stepped between it and Ron, sending it clattering back to the floor. “The tether is interrupted, and the object reverts to its natural state,” she observed in a clinical tone. “The energy field dissipates nearly instantaneously when not maintained; the rapidity suggests a failsafe rather than a failstate. Ron, again, please?”

The plate lifted. Sophie moved close to Ron's wand but did not block it. “The failsafe is activated when the user loses line of sight as determined by the tether. Having lost control, the spell extinguishes.” She interposed herself between Ron and the plate and, again, it fell. A slight frown creased her smooth brow. “Discovering the proper element of alteration requires trial and error. Ron?”

Four more times Ron lifted the plate, and each time it came crashing down. Fortunately it was silver, and not a more breakable material. Ron was beginning to look bored.

“Science is often repetitive,” Sophie said apologetically. “Again, please!”

On the fifth cast, when Sophie stepped in front of Ron's wand the expected clatter never came. She moved aside, and the plate remained suspended.

She grinned triumphantly, green eyes shining. “Success! The failsafe is averted; the spell continues to hold in the absence of the tether.”

She poked the plate with a finger. It moved away, gliding through the air and beginning a lazy spin. Bouncing off the wall, it drifted towards the ceiling. Hermione was reminded of recordings she had seen once from a space shuttle, the astronauts brushing things aside in the air.

“The object has no weight, but maintains mass,” Sophie continued. “This likely limits the density and size of objects that can be moved, accounting for the varying power levels of individuals.” Suddenly, the plate plummeted back to earth, ringing loudly on the stone. “The simulated weightlessness is temporary, lasting only so long as the spell continues to cycle. Without refreshment, it fades, and gravity is reasserted.”

Hermione felt as if she were attending a lecture. Should she politely applaud? She had the urge to take notes.

“Trial two will be an attempt to create the spell without a focal object. Primare Strauss, 1-875-153.” Sophie walked over to the chair in the corner where, unnoticed by Hermione, her mobile had been resting. She tapped a few buttons and tucked it away. “I'm hungry!” she declared. “I bet Scott will make us sandwiches if we ask nicely.”

She traipsed towards the kitchen and Hermione hastened to follow. “What did you mean by creating the spell without a focal object?” Hermione asked.

“Casting the spell on a point in space, rather than a solid anchor. If it works, it should create a zero gravity field,” Sophie explained.

Hermione had the sudden mental image of casting such a spell over her shoulder and watching the Death Eaters pursuing her flail helplessly in the air, unable to alter their momentum. “Could I learn to do such a thing?”

Sophie giggled, a high-pitched, childlike laugh that Hermione found a bit grating. “I think you could answer that better than me! But really, right now it's just a goal that sounds nice. That spell is made to work on singular objects. I have no idea how an area of effect even works in magic or if it has enough power to be distributed like that.”

Hermione considered the problem. “…I believe you would have to create a new spell using the Levitation Charm as a base. It's one of several spells all derived from the same concept, such as the Hover Charm. None of them do what you're describing, I'm afraid.”

“Well, it won't hurt to try! Unless something goes really wrong, then I guess it might hurt…”

They found Harry and Scott standing idly in the kitchen, both of them chewing on rather large sandwiches. Harry was holding himself stiffly, and Hermione saw him wince when he swallowed.

“What's wrong with you?” she asked him. She went to make sure there were still enough sandwich ingredients for the rest of them.

“You'd have to get the answer to that in essay form,” Scott said.

Harry snorted into his food. “Nothing,” he said to Hermione once he had recovered.

The blossoming bruise on his throat told a different story. “You just wait until Ginny sees that,” she admonished, pointing out the offending blemish.

“He volunteered,” Scott said.

Harry just nodded and took another bite.

“You're an adult, Scott; you don't need to hurt Harry to heal yourself, if you ever really did in the first place,” Hermione told him.

“Oh, Scott… What did you do?” Sophie asked with a disappointed demeanour.

“Nothing out of line,” Scott said, affronted. “Harry asked for some basic close combat training. He knew it was going to hurt. And it's not like it was all on me, I let him get his practise shots in.”

“Which I'm sure _also_ hurt. Hitting you is like, hitting a, a wall, or… Something else hard,” Sophie finished lamely.

“If you can't find an analogy, you should probably stop reaching,” Scott remarked.

“Quiet, you,” Sophie ordered. “Harry, come see me when you're done eating and let me check your hands.”

“I'm just sore, it's fine,” Harry said with his usual unnecessary bravado.

“Could be bruised sore, or could be hairline fractured from punching Scott's big bony head sore,” Sophie said pointedly.

Scott grinned at her. “Hey, it's not the only big bone I've got.” Then he straightened up and cast a quick glance around the room. “Crap, is Kylie in here?”

“It's not much good if you catch yourself _afterwards!”_ Sophie exclaimed.

“I'm good. She's not in here,” Scott said, relaxing.

“You're not good. You're rude.”

“And virile. Have you noticed how virile I am?”

“Virulent, maybe,” Sophie said, looking pleased with herself.

“Virulently sexy,” Scott said, deepening his voice. He stepped close to Sophie, towering over her, and ran his fingers down her arm.

“Quit it,” she said without conviction.

Hermione had rapidly tired of watching them flirt. “That had better not be the last of the ham,” she told Harry.

“There's some left,” he assured her.

'Some' proved to be a few measly bits that would barely suffice for half a sandwich. “Sophie, we're out of ham thanks to these two, can you add it to the list?”

“Adding ham to the list!” Sophie chimed. She picked up the list and swept her hand around the rubbish that had accumulated near it. “Pen, pen — where's my pen, who took it?”

“It probably rolled behind the counter,” Scott said.

His idle prediction provided the comical sight of Sophie — who usually carried herself with a posture and poise that Hermione associated with some sort of deportment school for Proper Young Ladies — climbing up onto the worktop and wiggling on her stomach until her head was flush with the wall. “…It's not here,” she said, her voice echoing back hollowly.

“Oh, here it is,” Scott said casually, extracting the pen from his shirt pocket. His gaze was firmly riveted on Sophie's ample posterior, her wide hips lifted and legs dangling towards the floor in a position that could easily be misconstrued.

She came to that conclusion without even looking back at him. “You butt! Give me that pen!”

“Sure, I'll give it to you.”

“You butt!”

Before long, everyone had gathered at the kitchen table for lunch (Sophie had bullied Scott into making it as absolution, though he seemed entirely unrepentant). Ginny was discussing her infamous Bat-Bogey Hex with Sophie, who looked equal parts enthralled and disgusted. Harry was poring over the Muggle maps with Scott, no doubt continuing their study of Godric's Hollow's geographical features. Hermione didn't know what pertinent information was left to be discerned, considering how much time they had spent on the task already.

Harry had taken to Scott's tactical instruction like a duck to water. She couldn't profess any surprise. Harry had always been intelligent, but often unfocussed (and it was difficult to blame him for it, considering the difficulties he had faced each year). Between the guns, hand-to-hand and small unit tactics, Scott had provided his Prime not only with an outlet for that intelligence, but also rage and helplessness. Hermione approved of Harry having an outlet; fifth year had demonstrated the consequences when he was kept bottled up. She just wished he could turn to Quidditch again, instead.

Ron and Kylie were fully immersed in their food, at least one thing they had in common. Hermione ate hers without tasting it. The mission to the Hollow loomed large in her mind, a steady pressure. Would it always be that way before every excursion? Constant worry, the stress of her limitless research… She drove herself to consider every angle, but that was impossible.

It was simply in her nature, she supposed. She couldn't seem to charge heedlessly like Harry and Ron, or be ready to adapt to inevitable permutation, like Scott. She needed planning and contingency. She could have the first, but never enough of the second.

“Hey, Scott,” Harry said, catching Hermione's attention as well. Scott had moved away from the map and was holding a very one-sided conversation with Kylie. “I have a question for you.”

“You've had a lot of those lately,” Scott observed.

“It's your own fault; you've actually been answering them.”

“I've always had an open door policy.”

“It's a bit frightening you can say that with a straight face,” Hermione interjected with a touch of justified spite.

“What can I do for you?” Scott said to Harry, ignoring her.

“I want to know if you can break open the Snitch,” Harry said seriously. “I have no idea how to open it and we might need whatever is inside, I don't want to wait.”

“Same answer as always for magical items. I think I could break it, but I can't promise it would survive the process. Maybe it destroys itself if forced, maybe the thing inside of it is tied to the lock and breaking one breaks both. Who knows.”

Harry looked to Hermione, and she sighed. More and more it seemed that she didn't have the answers expected of her. “I don't know. There's no magical basis for what Scott does, not that I've ever read about.” She was once again rephrasing that familiar refrain. The workings of the shape were alien to her beyond what Scott had explained and what she had observed and inferred. So she did what any responsible academic would do: she referred them to another expert. “Perhaps Sophie could help?”

At the sound of her name Sophie perked up, halting her conversation with Ginny. “Yes?”

“Harry has a magically protected object that he would like Scott to open,” Hermione explained. “Do you think you could help identify or separate the spells so that whatever is inside avoids damage?”

“Sure! But you'll have to teach me the spells I need to know, first.”

“We don't actually know how it was created…”

“Oh… Well, in that case, the only comparisons I have are the spells I already learned,” Sophie said regretfully.

Harry looked resigned, as if he had known better than to expect an easy answer. “Could you still take a look at it?

“No harm in trying,” Sophie agreed.

“It's upstairs in my handbag, Harry, you know where that is?” Hermione said.

“Yeah — half a mo', I'll get it,” he said.

Harry went to retrieve his gift, and upon his return Sophie dashed any remaining hopes. “No, sorry,” she said. “This is very complicated.”

“I would expect so. It was made by the Headmaster, after all,” Hermione said.

“So are you going to break it?” Ron asked Scott.

“I don't know. Sophie's already holding it, let her do it,” Scott said.

Sophie quickly set the Snitch down on the table. “I know I haven't been here very long, but that doesn't seem like a very good idea…”

Ron laughed. “That's all we got around here!”

“We don't have to decide right now,” Harry said, though he was not quite able to mask his impatience.

More days passed. The foray into Godric's Hollow remained at the forefront of their efforts. They had been given time to prepare and contemplate. Rushing off with minimal planning was easier from a stress standpoint, eliminating the intolerable waiting, but they were all still glad of the room to breathe. Harry wrote to Lupin again in an effort to gain any insight, no matter how trivial, into what they might be up against. Unfortunately, the letter was not coached in specifics, as they were unsure how secure Lupin's location was. They had tried calling Lila, and the former professor had not been with the Weasleys.

During the call, a rare outburst of genuine frustration had emerged from Scott. “Give me _something_ here, Lil!” he had yelled. It was the kind of display that had been entirely common at Hogwarts, but Hermione had become accustomed to the more subtle, placid expressions of an adult Scott.

Lila's response had been inaudible, but likely scathing. “Fine,” Scott had grumbled, “I'm sure Sophie would love to hear all your excuses.” He'd tossed the phone at the short woman, who had immediately set about placating Lila.

Lupin's reply to Harry came on another grey, soggy afternoon. The timing was fortuitous, as they had gathered to debate whether they should proceed without further reconnaissance. Scott had been advocating a solo trip for himself, after which he could report back. That had been the core of their discussion when Hedwig returned.

\----

Harry,

            I am relieved it was you who changed the Fidelius Charm and am also extremely curious as to how you managed it. But that can wait; Moody returned to us today, arriving unannounced at one of our safe locations. We made certain it was really him and that he was not Imperiused, and I suggest you do the same for those in your company.

            Apparently he's been on the run. The Death Eaters at his residence chased him but he was able to give them the slip once he escaped the Anti-Apparition Jinx. He's been all around since then, checking on people known to be sympathetic to us, and the news isn't good.

            Thanks to your warning we knew about the Taboo, but what we didn't know was how effective it has been at terrorising the populace. Many potential allies were discovered before we could get to them. It seems our own defiance in using He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's proper moniker has come back to haunt us.

            Worse, the sycophants and criminals and even those just scared out of their wits are taking sides. The result is a sort of militia that's been enforcing the Taboo and kidnapping dissenters. Those not motivated by a desire to move up the ranks and join the Death Eaters, or by simple fear, are seeking to collect a standing bounty on Muggle-borns. There's at least the pretence of legitimacy: the bounty has been placed by what's left of the Ministry. I don't know what they call themselves, but I've heard them referred to as the Snatchers. They are not organised like the Death Eaters proper, but by number alone are a concern.

            I pray that you remain safe and well. Lila Kharan recently made some interesting admissions to Bill. I would like to talk about them, among other things, when we meet in person.

            Be Safe, Harry,

            Remus

\----

“Again with the meeting in person,” Scott mused.

“Shut it,” Harry said absently. “Well, it's not good news, but it is news.”

“'Snatchers', huh,” Scott said, unimpressed. “I can't wait to tangle with the Death Eater Youth.”

“I knew Mad-Eye would make it,” Ron said triumphantly. “He's too barmy to die.”

“Fortunate that we discovered the Taboo when we did,” Hermione said, mulling over the new intelligence. “I also approve of the added precautions they've taken. I should think Scott could recognise the Imperius readily enough; it's powerful and constant, and there should be a, 'thread', back to the originator. I'm less certain about Polyjuice…”

“Can that be demonstrated?” Sophie asked.

Hermione shook her head. “It takes quite awhile to prepare and requires regular supervision.”

“Darn it. Why can't everything just be demonstrated?” Sophie said unhappily.

“We should have secret phrases we can use for that,” Ginny said eagerly, clearly excited at the prospect of exercising such spy-craft.

A bit dramatic, but not an idea without merit. “We could. If not, our shared memories should suffice,” Hermione said.

“Right,” Scott agreed. “Just ask something specific. For example: Ginny, when you were with Harry in the hospital wing, what did I say you would give him for good behaviour?”

Ginny coloured. “Shut it!” she snapped.

Scott looked at the rest of them. “It's her.”

Harry was confused. “What?”

“Never you mind,” Ginny told him.

“…I'll just ask later,” he mumbled, subsiding.

Hermione didn't know what that had been about, and she also didn't much care. “You should really meet with Professor Lupin before long, Harry. It sounds like there are some things he'll only discuss in person.”

“Ugh. I don't really want to handle questions about Lila,” Harry said with distaste.

“Lil can handle it herself. Just send him back to her,” Scott said.

“What do you think she told Bill?”

“As little as possible.”

“Sounds familiar,” Harry said dryly.

“Hey, I could have told you nothing at all.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Yes, let's all be ever so grateful for each bit of partial disclosure we had to drag out of you.”

Scott's face darkened, but, before he could issue a cutting remark, Sophie jumped in. “Some things are hard to explain, I'm sure we all understand that,” she said lightly. “Will any of this change the plans for the next mission?”

“No,” Harry determined.

“The stuff about the Taboo made me think, and I was wondering if the Fidelius might be stronger?” Ginny said.

“I don't think we should say the name even if it is. Don't break a good habit,” Ron said wisely.

“Hmm… I believe that, even if they could be alerted, the location itself should remain a mystery,” Hermione calculated. “Ron is correct, however. It's important that we continue not saying it.”

“But if we _could_ say it, even just once, it creates interesting opportunities,” Scott said.

Hermione always became suspicious when Scott began to speak of 'interesting opportunities'. “Such as?”

“A trap. Riddle doesn't deal with the Taboo himself, he's a busy man. And it sounds like it doesn't even warrant the hooded crowd, now. So why not thin the herd and maybe learn something while we're at it?”

Predictably, it was Harry who seemed most eager to pursue Scott's suggestion. “What did you have in mind?”

“Record his name, find a nice spot out in the sticks somewhere, set it to repeat and wait for someone to take the bait.”

Hermione could plot out the rest for herself. “The Taboo may not work on an electronic recording.”

“I'd still like to try.”

“I think it could work,” Harry agreed.

“Perhaps,” Hermione vacillated, unwilling to commit, “but we should wait. Let's not put them on high alert right before we go out there.”

Scott tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Of course.”

“So where are we on the plan, then?” Ron questioned. “If I'm going to get cursed I'd like to know when and where, saves on worrying.”

Harry picked up one of the maps and placed it on the middle of the table. “We'll be coming in on this north road, here.” He traced it with his finger. “We'll have three teams. The first will be Ginny and me. We'll go to the graveyard and then to my parents' cottage. The second will be Ron and Hermione. You two will see if you can find Bagshot's house. Once that's done we'll meet up and talk to her, if she's there.”

Ginny put her hand over Harry's and smiled at him. “You and me, yeah?”

“I thought you might like that part,” Harry said wryly. “Sophie has some things she can use to make us look like Muggle couples, so we don't stand out.”

Hermione had issues with the plan. “I don't know about splitting us up like that, even if only for a while… And where is Scott in all this?”

“Highground,” Scott said cryptically, and placed his finger on a map point that meant nothing to Hermione.

Ron was on the same page. “Thanks for clearing that up, mate, you're always so bloody helpful.”

Scott sighed loudly, as if his saint-like patience was being tried by their ignorance. When he saw Sophie glaring at him, he dropped the act and explained, “The town sits below this hill line in a flat area surrounded by woods. At least part of the ridge is probably man-made, you can see the railroad tracks that run along this section, north to south. The hill curves along the west edge of town and then tapers out in this farmland down here. That's my vantage point, the crescent hill. I'm going to cover and coordinate from there.”

It was the same role he had taken during Kylie's rescue. Hermione knew that Ron would be glad he wouldn't have to sit on the sidelines again, but she wasn't sure… Staying behind was difficult, but moving without contact was dangerous. Another sudden storm could increase their peril. “Coordinate how?”

“Godric's Hollow is mostly Muggle. Their electronics work, so Scott's should, too,” Harry said. “He has some radio gear.”

“Gear that's been gathering dust up until this point,” Scott said. “Military grade. I'll run you through some channel protocols.”

“Radio? Like, what, the wireless?” Ron said apprehensively, no doubt reluctant to learn how to operate a strange Muggle contraption.

“It's not hard, I can show you how,” Sophie told him.

“Anybody have something to add?” Harry asked.

“I realise that having two pairs in town initially will speed things up,” Hermione said slowly, trying to phrase her concerns effectively, “but I'm worried that splitting our firepower may be a mistake.”

“It's a risk,” Harry grimly agreed. “I don't like not having us all together, either, but I think we'd be more noticeable with a group of four. And if something goes wrong, we'll need to get out quick as we can. Especially now, since it looks like Riddle has even more people.”

“I'm out there to create a delay, if it comes to that,” Scott said.

“Plus, you and Ron will have the Cloak,” Harry said to Hermione.

That seemed unwise. “Oh, no, Harry, your parents' house is on the edge of town, you'll need it more,” Hermione argued.

“You take it, we'll be fine,” Harry insisted.

“Yeah, we don't need it,” Ginny joined in.

Hermione shot an exasperated look Scott's way. “A bit of help, please?”

Scott obliged. “She's right. Graveyard team gets the Cloak. The mission comes before misplaced chivalry.”

“Take it to a vote,” Ginny challenged him.

“We are not taking it to a vote. You are getting the Cloak and that is the end of it,” Hermione stated with finality. But, of course, it wasn't final at all. They argued about it for a few more minutes, until at last she exclaimed, “All right, we'll vote! All in favour of Harry and Ginny having it…”

Hermione, Scott, Ron and Sophie all raised their hands, leaving Harry and Ginny outvoted no matter what they did.

“Fine,” Harry said shortly, angry at being overruled. Hermione would have thought that he'd be happy that Ginny would have the Cloak, but perhaps he hadn't considered it that way.

“Why does Sophie get a vote?” Ginny complained, even though it didn't matter.

“Because she's pretty. The opposite reason is why you don't get a vote,” Scott said snidely.

Ginny jumped up from her seat to counter-attack by word or wand — it was good odds for either — when Sophie beat her to it. “Scott, you do not talk to her like that!” she said in a direct, imperious tone that Hermione had never heard from her before. Then she turned to Ginny and said in her usual light manner, “He was just joking, but he shouldn't have said something that mean. You are very beautiful, and don't listen to anyone who says otherwise.”

Scott rolled his eyes. Despite the uncaring gesture, he didn't speak on his own behalf.

“Also, I get a vote because I buy your food!” Sophie said, once again cheerful.

“No, you get a vote because you can shut _him_ up,” Ginny said, glaring at Scott.

A moment of awkward silence descended, as no one seemed to have anything else to add (and the tension between Ginny and Scott was difficult to ignore). The distant rumble of thunder echoed down from the upstairs hall, causing everyone to glance that way involuntarily.

“It's going to look strange if we're strolling about in the rain,” Ron said.

“Go when the weather clears. Probably won't be nice enough for a crowd, if this place ever has any,” Scott advised.

“More waiting,” Harry sighed. “Well, I guess that gives you extra time to knock me about, Scott.”

“Actually, Harry, Scott asked if I would help you train,” Sophie said.

Harry looked a bit relieved. “Sure, we could switch.”

Sophie didn't appear to be much of an opponent, but appearances were deceiving. Hermione knew that Harry had been struggling to learn anything under the lightning-quick instinctual onslaught that was Scott's tutelage. Sophie might offer something more palatable. Hermione just hoped that Sophie wouldn't injure Harry before the mission, which was a strange thought to reconcile with the Kharadjai woman's tiny stature and porcelain doll features.

“When do the rest of us get to learn all that?” Ginny inquired.

“Whenever you ask,” Scott said.

Ginny's jaw set pugnaciously. “Then teach me.”

“Er… How about I go back to Scott and you practise with Sophie?” Harry suggested.

“What? You don't think I can handle him?” Ginny demanded.

“No,” Harry told her with unfortunate directness.

“I can teach both of you, and anyone else who wants to learn,” Sophie said. “The basics aren't difficult.”

Hermione knew her strengths, and physical confrontation was not one of them. Still, it could only be helpful to learn a few self-defence methods. “I would like to learn those basics, at least. I think we all should.”

“The more the merrier!” Sophie happily replied.

Hermione wasn't sure she liked such enthusiasm from the woman who was volunteering to hurt them. Scott didn't speak on the subject any further, apparently content to let Sophie take the reins. Hermione wondered if Lila might be persuaded to make a similar offer of instruction to the Order.

They could all use an edge.

***---~**~---*** 

Scott stared moodily out the window, taking in a second-storey view of a day as grey as an overcoat. It had been raining steadily for nearly twenty-four hours. The few pedestrians that passed did so in a hurry, carrying umbrellas and keeping their heads down.

Normally, a downpour wouldn't be reason enough to delay a mission (and hadn't before). But the plan was to hide in plain sight, and that meant not being the only people on the street. His chosen firing position on the far outskirts of town required good visibility, as well. Or at least as good as it ever became. England wasn't known for its low humidity.

Downstairs, Sophie was teaching the Primes simple hand-to-hand techniques, the 'joints and points' that Scott had already imparted to Harry. No doubt they were having an easier time of it with her. Scott wasn't much good as a close combat instructor, and he knew it. It came too naturally to him; he had difficulty limiting himself, and quickly grew frustrated with his pupils. So he let Sophie take over. And if anyone besides Harry wanted to learn shooting techniques, Scott could handle that without issue.

Rain continued to thunk against the windowpane. He didn't allow it to bother him. The military taught many skills, but one of the most valuable was the ability to tolerate tedium. HUAW, as the well-known saying went: Hurry Up And Wait. His time spent orbiting Carcer on the _Longevity_ had been an exercise in endurance. The lesson had served him well ever since.

He reached into his pocket and grasped his phone for a moment. He knew there wouldn't be any calls he had missed, it was always on his person. Lil hadn't called him since he had snapped at her; she'd been calling Sophie instead, checking in that way. He probably deserved that. Lil would get over it, in time.

A few more cars moved by on the street. He had seen nothing to indicate Death Eater activity, which was enough to prod his paranoia. It had already been demonstrated that severing individuals from the Fidelius Charm removed access to the location, but not the memories of it. Grimmauld Place was the name of the street, not just the building. That should have been more than sufficient information to bring Riddle's men outside, even if they were unable to see the structure itself.

So where were they? The Death Eaters weren't exactly Primarius ComOp material, but they hadn't been _completely_ incompetent. Surely they had their hands on someone who knew Grimmauld Place. Snape, if no one else. It was possible that, despite whatever vague memories remained after the severance, the name of the street was lost to Snape and everyone else who had been cut out of the charm. That would be convenient, but not something that could be counted on without more in the way of confirmation. Scott was about to start checking license numbers and identifying residents. He would need a phone book to get started, and then a police uniform and a notepad…

His highly illegal ruminations were stalled when Kylie pattered into the room and sat on the couch. He glanced back at her to make sure she wasn't more upset (than usual) since he'd last seen her. “Hey, Kylie. How's tricks?”

She stared back at him, uncomprehending.

He tried again. “What's happening, how have you been today?”

“Okay,” she said, and it looked to be true enough. With the ongoing training sessions and frequent meetings, Kylie had found new ways to involve herself, and had been sleeping less. She enjoyed watching Sophie bend magic into new forms, and, with her first-year education, had a lot to learn herself. Her magical instruction would continue, if sporadically, despite her absence from Hogwarts.

Not for the first time, Scott wondered how much attention Kylie was paying to what was happening around her. She had never asked directly just who Scott was or why the Horcruxes were so important, but maybe she didn't have to. Or maybe she thought she wouldn't get an answer.

“Get tired of spellwork?” he asked her. She had been levitating plates and jinxing mattresses while the others suffered through Sophie's crash course.

Kylie nodded. “I broke a cup,” she confessed.

“Well, we've all broken a few lately.”

They lapsed back into companionable silence, punctuated by the skitter of rain. It was one of the things Scott liked about Kylie: silences with her were never awkward, never weighted with words waiting unsaid. Her presence was not demanding.

He followed the progress of a lorry, its cargo rattling loudly as it turned the corner. He'd never seen the vehicle before, but that didn't mean much, he hadn't been monitoring the street constantly. He had a hard time imagining any Death Eaters learning to drive, but it was impossible to track all of the traffic in London, and if they changed cars often enough…

Still unlikely. And inefficient, gaining glimpses only in passing.

Kylie's voice came again, quiet but steady. “Do your parents know you're grown up now?”

Not a question he had expected, though it obliquely approached some of the curiosities the girl must have had. “They're dead,” he said easily, without reprimand. “And this is my real age, remember? I was younger before so I could go to Hogwarts.”

“I'm sorry,” Kylie said mechanically, as if she knew it was customary to express sympathy for dead parents, but wasn't sure why. “How did you get younger?”

“It's a special skill. Not many people can do it, but I was taught how.”

“Oh.” A short pause, then a deep breath. “I don't think you're a wizard.”

He was surprised to see her being so straightforward, but it was a good sign. He had never wanted to be feared by her, and if she could put questions to him directly then it might be an indication that she had found a better basis of comfort at Grimmauld Place. He left the window to sit next to her on the couch, where she was looking shocked by her own audacity. She flinched when he met her gaze.

“I'm not. I'm a Kharadjai. We're like… a different kind of Muggle,” he tried to explain. “We don't have magic, but we can do other things. And we have technology.”

“Like guns?”

“Like guns,” he confirmed. “I was sent here because Harry needs help, and I was trained to help people like him.”

“But they didn't train you in America,” Kylie ventured.

“No. I've been to America, but I'm not from anywhere you've ever heard of. It's very far from here, in a sense.”

She crossed her arms and looked away. “You don't have to make it so simple for me. I'm not a dumb little kid,” she stated with a note of tween petulance so unexpected from her that she might as well have screamed it.

Scott grinned at her. “Okay, sassy-pants. I'm a soldier in a special forces branch that's assigned to intercede in universes that have major problems by assisting those closest to the events. As an integrationist, I have been trained to become a part of their lives in order to maintain maximum efficiency while still being invisible, or at least inexplicable, to outside observers. That's why I was at Hogwarts, that's why I'm still here now. I go where Harry goes, I do whatever I can to help him.”

Kylie took a few moments to absorb that. Then she asked the question that she had really wanted to. “Why did you help _me?_ ”

That was much easier to answer. “Because you're my friend. You asked for my help and I wasn't going to leave you there.”

“Why did the others come?” she almost whispered.

“They weren't going to leave you there, either.”

A tear rolled down Kylie's pale cheek. She stood, wiped it away, and hurried from the room.

Scott followed her as far as the doorway. “”When you want to talk again you can always find me!” he called after her.

Kylie was solitary by nature (and by nurture, as the case seemed to be). She would need some time to work things through, and then she would be back with more questions.

Though, if they were about the future, then Scott was going to run out of answers.


	14. Meshes

**14**

**Meshes**

\---

 _“What do you do when your hands are  
_ _not enough? What do you say when your  
_ _words will not help things? Remember,  
_ _always: the future is informed by the past,  
_ _and it is the past you cannot change._

—Primare Macawi Qaletaqa, Integration Corps

\---

_“Visus Verum”  
_

(Sight True)

 _—_ Primarius Combat Corps Designated Marksman Maxim

\--- 

“You can still hear me, right?” Harry said nervously, touching a finger to his ear.

 **“Yes. Stop touching your ear,”** Scott said, his voice tinny and distorted.

Harry quickly dropped his hand. It wasn't that he doubted the technology: he had greater faith in Muggle devices than most of his companions. It was more that he had substantially less faith in his ability to utilise it properly. The receiver in his ear was working, but he was plagued by the persistent feeling that it might be a bit clearer or a bit more comfortable if he adjusted it just a little more…

He tried not to think about it, and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his light jacket to keep them from wandering. The hood of the jacket was pulled up over the hat with the enthusiastic fox on it that Scott had given him before, along with the rectangular glasses. The dark blue of the garment matched neatly with a pair of excessively baggy black trousers (with an extra tight belt in case he needed to run) and a ratty set of red trainers. All together, it made him pretty anonymous, he thought. He could be any London teenager with a taste for loud music and a contempt for authority.

Ginny was less unremarkable, but even more transformed. Her hair had been turned a light brown, streaked with bright pink stripes and styled at the front with a perfectly-edged fringe that fell to her eyebrows. Her lipstick and mascara were dark, highlighting her expressive eyes and the white of her teeth. She was wearing tight, low-slung jeans with stylish holes in all the right places, and a lime green t-shirt which had some kind of big-eyed Japanese mascot and lettering on it. There were multiple earrings in both of her ears (only the ones in the lobes were real), a tiny diamond stud on the side of her nose and a small silver ring in the left corner of her mouth (both fake). She was a veritable punk rock princess (“I look like a drummer for the Weird Sisters!” she had exclaimed).

Harry thought she looked hot. He wasn't all that keen on the brown hair, though.

“Enjoying the view?” she teased, noticing his scrutiny. She waggled her tongue at him, showing off her faux-tongue stud.

He needed to be focussing on a different view. “I wonder what your mum would say?”

“Nothing, unless you count shrieking,” Ginny snickered.

The two of them were sitting in a Muggle park, huddled together on a bench whilst they waited for Scott to find a good position. Ron and Hermione were doing the same at an intersection several streets away.

“Any luck?” Harry tried again, making sure not to fiddle with the device.

 **“Yeah. I just jumped a fence and found myself in Muggle-charm territory,”** Scott said. **“Shouldn’t have to worry about company on this side of the ridge.”**

 **“There's a charm where you are? A Repelling Charm?”** Hermione questioned.

 **“Yeah, I think so. It's familiar enough,”** Scott replied.

** “Do you see any reason as to why?” **

A short silence. **“…I didn't think of that, that's a good point. There must be something up here. I'll let you know if I run across anything, but I'm moving on**.”

The fact that the Muggle-Repelling Charm didn't even try to work its aversion magic on Scott implied some things about the shape and what he was. It was the sort of stuff Hermione probably thought about. “Right, just let us know. Uh, break,” Harry said.

Scott had devoted about half an hour the previous day to a lecture on the vast array of KRAF communications protocols. Harry had held on longer than most, but finally spaced out when Scott began detailing the command codes between squad, element and company leaders, whatever that even meant. Sophie had capped off the presentation by pointing out that strict adherence to protocol was irrelevant as there were only five of them in the field.

** “Don't get stilted, Red-Lead. Just talk when you have to, Sophie already ruined my fun.” **

“Copy, Highground,” Harry replied with a small grin.

** “Technically applicable, since I'm functioning as forward observation and support, but as the ranking Primarius asset in the field I would probably be Sword-Lead. 'Scott' will also work.” **

Ginny had little interest in such specifics. “Are you ready yet?” she said edgily.

** “Soon. I see a tree I like the look of.” **

Ron's voice came booming over the hiss of the radio. **“For climbing or peeing?”**

** “Keep it down, Ron, I can hear you just fine. And the tree will serve both purposes nicely.” **

“Now we have to sit here whilst he pees,” Ginny muttered.

Godric's Hollow was a sort of quintessential British town: one- and two- storey buildings with hedges, pine trees and low stone walls. The cottages crowded together along narrow streets lined with tall black lampposts. Cars were not allowed to park in the village proper, lending it an even more rustic appearance. The air was cool and more than a bit humid. The soil squished beneath Harry's shoes, and the roads were strewn with deep puddles.

He could see the hill and the woods rising above the edge of town; Scott was somewhere in those trees, invisible and lethal. It was comforting knowledge. It was also a bit unnerving. Harry felt as if he had an angel of death hovering near, and with the release of a single careless word or gesture would bear witness to a bullet snuffing the life from a hapless target.

That was stupid, of course. Scott wasn't so inept, so random. He wouldn't shoot some poor Muggle in a fit of panic because Harry had sneezed. Scott _didn't_ panic, so far as Harry could tell. That behaviour seemed to have been stamped out of the Kharadjai.

 **“I'm situated,”** Scott radioed, his level tone underscoring Harry's thoughts. **“Red-Lead, progress. Gold-Lead, maintain.”**

“I think that means we can go now,” Harry said to Ginny, and together they stood and began walking towards the town square.

Harry knew that the graveyard was behind the church at the centre of the village. He didn't know much beyond what the map could tell him, though, so they would have to alter their plans according to whatever obstacles occurred. There were a few other people out and about, on the streets and their lawns; Harry returned the friendly wave from a man tending to his front garden. Ginny's newly styled hair was already beginning to frizz in the damp. Harry's jacket clung wetly to his skin, but he knew he'd be just as uncomfortable without it.

He tried to stick to the left side of the street, knowing it was the only chance Scott would have to keep them in sight. It didn't seem to matter much, though: the houses were too close to the pavement, and any buildings with a first storey were probably in Scott's way. Harry pulled on Ginny's elbow, moving her further towards the houses and away from the open street.

She went with him, but shook her head slightly. “It's no good, those trees are still there.”

He glanced over; sure enough, the houses had momentarily ended only to be replaced by tall pines behind a fence. “Scott, can you see us at all?”

 **“Sometimes. Get to the square, it's mostly open. Gold-Lead, maintain, but be ready,”** Scott said.

 **“We'll be ready,”** Hermione replied.

 **“The sooner the better. This bench is rough on the arse,”** Ron said.

The square was just up ahead. There was little traffic of any kind around, despite it being the hub of the village. A woman on a bicycle passed by, and the retail shops had a few customers visible through the glass window displays. The Parish Church sat at the terminus of the lane which bore its name. It was a very old building, though Harry didn't know enough about architecture to guess how old. The suburbs of Little Whinging were an entirely different sort of England than Godric's Hollow.

“It's quite nice here,” Ginny opined, looking around the square. “Bit damp at the moment, but that'll change…”

He looked at her and imagined, for a vivid moment, what life would have been like had he stayed, had his parents lived. He would have met Ginny at Hogwarts regardless; he might have been a better boyfriend, happier, more whole. He could see himself with her, hand in hand, roaming the square, eating at the shops and then going back home for a snog in the cottage garden.

But his parents were dead, the cottage was empty, and in so many ways he was, as well.

“Harry?” Ginny said softly.

He looked up, realising he had stopped in the middle of the pavement. “Sorry,” he said, resuming motion. “It is nice, yeah.”

They crossed the square together, avoiding the deeper puddles in the old, uneven road. Groups of birds chattered and pecked at the ground, searching for crumbs and splashing in the pools. Hints of music wafted out from an open window somewhere, echoing faintly. No one seemed to be paying Harry and Ginny much attention.

“What's this?” Ginny said, indicating the obelisk in the centre of the square.

 **“Memorial,”** Scott radioed. **“I don't know what's on the other sides, but I can see the Air Raid Precautions insignia on the one facing me. Volunteers lost during the Blitz, most likely.”**

Harry felt somewhat ashamed at that; he was only barely familiar with the organisation's existence. “There's a crown with a circle on this one, it says 'AFS'.”

** “Auxiliary Fire Service. You'll find more than a few women listed on that thing.” **

Harry approached to take a closer look, and then recoiled in shock. The obelisk had disappeared: in its place was a statue of a family with a small child. He blinked, nonplussed. Obviously, the monument had been magically altered.

Comprehension began to dawn just as Ginny spoke again. “Harry… Is that your parents?”

It was. It was strange to see them in stone form, but there was no mistaking it. The infant in Lily Potter's arms was none other than Harry himself.

He didn't know how to feel about that. He had never become accustomed to being put on a pedestal, and now it was entirely literal.

** “What's going on? Call out targets.” **

“No, no targets,” Harry said quickly, taking a step back. The statue did not revert. “The obelisk is actually a statue of my parents and… well, me.”

 **“It must be magically concealed. You would have to be close to see what they are, Scott,”** Hermione chimed in. Harry had almost forgotten that she and Ron were listening.

“Baby Harry is so cute!” Ginny gushed. She brushed the stone infant with one hand. “Ugh. And very wet, still…”

 **“Change your nappy, Harry,”** Ron said.

“Ha ha, shut it, Ron,” Harry grumbled. “Brilliant, now I'm a sodding statue. And have been, I guess. Thanks for not telling me, all the people who have known my whole life.”

“We didn't know, either,” Ginny said.

“I wasn't blaming you. No one here is to blame,” he said tiredly.

He stood and stared at the effigy for a couple long minutes, trying to decide how he really felt about it. He couldn't find the right mixture of emotions. It was a good likeness, but the photographs he had been given by Hagrid were better. He didn't know if the statue was a fitting tribute or an empty gesture. No one had ever asked him how he felt about it. No one had bothered to inform him that it existed in the first place. But there were a great many things of which no one had bothered to inform him, and the statue was far less important than most of them.

“Come on,” he muttered finally, gesturing to Ginny. “Let's go before someone asks me to sign it.”

“What is it all the girls do at rock concerts? ‘Would you sign my chest?’” Ginny asked with forced levity in a rather obvious attempt to distract him from his dead parents given engraved form.

It didn't really work, but he appreciated the effort. “Maybe later.”

 **“Oi! Mission stuff only, I don't need that shite delivered straight to my ear,”** Ron complained.

Harry had expected some colourful commentary from Scott, but the Kharadjai had remained silent as Harry left the statue and continued towards the church. Normally Harry would just let it be, but an extended silence of any kind made him second guess his radio.

“Scott? Are you there?” he asked, trying to touch a finger to his ear without being obvious about it.

 **“I'm here,”** Scott replied after a moment.

“Okay. Just making sure I hadn't lost connection.”

** “No.” **

Harry frowned. Scott sounded a bit different, not like he had a moment before. “Everything all right?”

** “Yes, now if you're done playing with the statue there's a graveyard to tour.” **

Harry frowned. Scott's tone was brusque and annoyed, which wasn't his usual reaction to the kind of verbal sparring that had been going on. He almost sounded… “Er, Scott…” Harry said carefully, basing his query entirely on a gut feeling, “Are you… not happy about the statue?”

Ginny looked startled. “Is he getting tetchy on _your_ behalf?” she said to Harry.

“No, I think he has his own reasons. And I guess I understand.”

There was a long pause. **“…All right. Look, it's no offence to your parents, okay? And I know they sure as hell didn't ask for it, but everybody on that obelisk is a fucking hero and it's — i-it's not a shared space, you don't just override that and use it for something else.”**

 **“But the obelisk is still there, only witches and wizards can—”** Hermione began.

** “Can not see the obelisk? Everybody should see it. And I bet it was there first. Forget it, this is immaterial. Where are you guys? I can't see you.” **

**“We're still along the edge of town. Doesn't look like there's much magic around here, probably not the right place,”** Ron supplied.

** “Copy. Keep looking.” **

The church was a typically shaped structure with intricate stained-glass windows and little else in the way of decoration. The front doors were open.

“Do we have to go inside?” Ginny wondered. There was a fence extending from both sides of the building.

“Scott, how do we get in? I'm not climbing a fence with these people around,” Harry said.

 **“I think there's a gate to the right of the steps,”** Scott told him.

As it turned out, there was a gate there, almost hidden in the shadow of the church and neatly blending in with its dark surrounds. It was partially opened, and squeaked a bit when Harry pushed it. He quelled the impulse to glance around and see if anyone had noticed, keeping his gaze firmly ahead.

Scott had observed his discipline. **“Good nonchalance, Harry, but not especially effective when Ginny is walking backwards and glaring everywhere. Why don't you just scream, 'I'm not supposed to be here'?”**

Ginny flushed. “Then say something next time!” she snapped, but her defiance was laden with chagrin. “I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't think…”

Harry shook his head. “It's fine, nobody was looking. I should have told you.”

** “Ginny.” **

“Yes, I know, I mucked it up,” she sighed.

** “Maybe a little. But I know it's tense out there, and if your first instinct is to keep your head on a swivel nobody's gonna blame you for that. You're doing fine, keep it up.” **

“Right,” she said blankly, apparently unable to deal with encouragement from Scott.

** “Also, let's keep things clear. I'm remote switching all channels, separating Red and Gold. Don't panic if I'm not remarking on chatter, and let me know if we need to cross communicate again.” **

**“Good luck, you two,”** Hermione said, and there was a soft 'click' that Harry assumed meant the radio channel had changed.

 **“Red-Lead, come back,”** Scott said.

“What? But we just got… Oh, wait, that means — yeah, we're here. Uh, I copy. …Break.”

** “Channel is good. Continue progression, check in at intervals.” **

The graveyard lay serene in the shadow of the parish church. The grass was neatly trimmed and the headstones seemed well cared-for, though a few of the older ones displayed the inevitable ravages of age and weather. Sounds from the village drifted in, mixing with the sighs of the wind through the bushes. It was odd, in a way, to be visiting a graveyard in such a fashion. The sun shone brightly overhead, burning through the damp and casting rainbows where the mist met the horizon. There was no gloom, no cold or dark. Harry's last visit to a burial ground had been in a more classical setting.

It was hard to be overly apprehensive in such surrounds. There was nothing threatening about the scene, no sense of foreboding. It was peaceful, lucent. It made the weight over his heart easier to bear. His parents had found a fine place to rest.

He had no indication as to where his parents' grave was, exactly, but the graveyard wasn't very large and it didn't take him long to find it. There was no ostentatious memorial, in contrast to the square. The headstone was a simple one of white marble, gleaming in the sun. It stood in the middle of a row, without anything to differentiate it save for the names carved there.

“This is it,” he said to Ginny, who had been searching a different row.

She approached, her eyes scanning the inscription. “'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death',” she read.

 **“First Corinthians,”** Scott said. **_“Novissima autem inimica destruetur mors._** **Always liked that one.”**

Harry stood over the grave, feeling sort of empty. There was no sense of closure or peace or even just sadness. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel, really. Regret? Loss? When he had been younger, he'd imagined what life would have been like with his mother and father, childish fantasies of perfection to serve as a sharply contrasting escape from the reality of the Dursleys. But by the time he finally arrived to pay his respects, he knew that no matter how he had been raised, he would still be destined for the war. For death.

'The last enemy', indeed. Unfortunately, not the only one. Death had many hooded minions.

Ginny took his hand hesitantly, probably not sure if he wanted to be touched right then. He didn't mind; he wasn't distraught. And, in fact, his lack of any strong reaction was beginning to make him feel guilty. They were his _parents_. Shouldn't he be grieving?

“…I don't know what I expected,” he said finally, staring at the headstone but not really seeing it. “It's hard to feel like they're here.”

 **“They aren't. The body is a vessel for something more complex,”** Scott stated. His confidence in such a belief wasn't difficult to understand: he was living evidence.

“Don't feel bad about it. You never had a chance to know them,” Ginny said, leaning against him. “ _He_ took that from you, too.”

“Yeah,” Harry muttered, feeling dark strands of hatred cut at his heart, “he did.”

The grave looked pristine. Not that he had expected it to be vandalised or covered with graffiti, but he had thought that there might be more signs of visitation. Perhaps the magical population was discouraged from coming to the graveyard, and that was the purpose the statue served. Most would likely assume that the square hosted the primary memorial.

He let a few minutes tick by, but no sudden onslaught of emotion assailed him. He was almost disappointed. There were no answers here, no memories. Just a marker for people he had never known, even if he _should_ have known them, in a better world. He thought about what Scott had told him after Dumbledore had been killed, how the dead didn't miss the living and grief was a sadness for the self. James and Lily Potter were long buried, and Harry was the one who had been left to suffer. He could try to miss what he'd never had, but that was pointless and at least partially impossible.

He'd spent more than enough time feeling sorry for himself as it was.

“Let's go,” he said to Ginny.

She hesitated. “I found something else you might want to see,” she said.

“What's that?”

She led him past a few more graves until she stopped and pointed at one carved from granite. From the angle of his view he couldn't read all of it, but the name 'Dumbledore' immediately caught his eye.

He hurried forward and stooped down, studying the stone. “'Kendra Dumbledore'… 'And her daughter Ariana'…”

 **“Not a common name. I assume there's a relation,”** Scott said.

Harry had never discussed the upsetting rumours he'd been told during the wedding. Scott didn't know anything about Dumbledore's apparently troubled past. But, then, did Harry? Dumbledore had never even hinted that he'd had a sister. It was frustrating (and still hurtful) to consider just how secretive the Headmaster had been, and how little Harry had been entrusted with.

“I think so,” Harry said, opting not to get into the details.

Scott either didn't pick up on his reluctance or didn't care. **“I can lead you to the cottage whenever you're done there.”**

Harry looked to Ginny. “Ready?”

“If you are,” she said, glancing back at the Potter grave.

He knew he would return someday, assuming he lived long enough to do so. “Yeah, let's move on.”

The Potter cottage, or whatever might be left of it, stood on the southern border of town. Harry had been wondering if the Fidelius might still be active on the property, since a lack of occupants didn't seem to matter. If that were true, they would need Scott to abandon his post and assist them directly. Instead, Harry was mildly surprised to see the upper level of the cottage rising up from behind the hedges of the front garden.

It appeared largely intact, save for one section of the first storey that had been utterly destroyed, leaving the inside visible through the shattered walls. The weeds and hedges were overgrown and the wall around the front garden was vine-covered with crumbling mortar, but, despite those flaws, it seemed otherwise sound.

Harry stopped in front of the rusting wrought-iron gate. “It looks better than I expected,” he said.

“I'll bet it used to be lovely…” Ginny said softly, and in her eyes Harry could almost see the reflection of what she imagined.

“Needs some work at the moment,” he said. He didn't want to envision the house as she was, before it had been made a ruin. He didn't want to become attached or nostalgic for a time he couldn't even remember.

She looked at him knowingly. “You don't have act like this.”

“Like what?” he said defensively.

“Like you're so tough.”

He glared at her. “Maybe I am so tough.”

“I know you are, you prat, it's part of what I like about you! But it's okay to feel _something_ , it was your parents' house.”

“So, what? I should throw a wobbly, right here?” he demanded.

“Just forget it,” she muttered with a huff.

 **“Let's save the hysterics for Grimmauld, Red-Lead,”** Scott reminded.

“Sure,” Harry said shortly. He reached out and grasped the gate to see if he could pull it open, and then immediately rebounded when a sign with golden letters appeared out of nowhere in front of him. “ _God —_ can't I touch anything around here without it turning into a fucking memorial?!”

** “Problem?” **

“No. Just another marker,” Harry said, trying to calm down. Given the situation, he really couldn't afford to be fighting with Ginny and lashing out at inanimate objects.

** “What's the sign? I can only see the back of it.” **

“Uh…” Harry quickly read through it. “It just says that this was the Potter cottage and that they left it like this in memory of what happened.” Another fragment of his life, preserved in amber for the consumption of the masses.

Scott unwittingly echoed Harry's thought. **“Nothing like seeing your tragic past reduced to a tourist trap, huh?”**

“At least Uncle Vernon would charge,” Harry said, amused at the thought of the Dursleys ever attempting to capitalise on their wizarding connections.

** “When this is all over, I'll show you how to make some real money online. The obsessions of modern society ensure that there will always be some pitiable freak willing to pay a premium for your nail clippings and-or pubes.” **

Harry didn't want to know what they might do with either item. “I'd rather not.”

“Did you see this, Harry?” Ginny was asking, pointing at the sign.

Harry looked to where she was indicating — on closer inspection, he saw that the sign had been repeatedly vandalised. There were all sorts of carvings and inscriptions in magic ink. Some of them were just the usual 'X Was Here' nonsense, but others were words of encouragement and hope. There was an old and faded 'Please come back Harry' on one side, and a much newer 'be careful out there, Mr. Potter' on the other. There was a 'SOD YOURSELF MUGGLELOVER' as well, but he ignored that one.

Ginny was looking at the top left corner with a grin on her face. “Someone carved a todger right here,” she sniggered.

** “Ah, the ol' line-drawing penis… Classic mainstay of every vandal. When in doubt, draw a dick.” **

“It's a touching tribute,” Harry said, looking at the crudely etched genitalia. At the very least, it was better than the Death Eater-derived messages.

The gate proved resistant to their efforts, but after a couple minutes of investigation they were able find a spot in the wall where erosion had left a foothold. The grass in the front garden reached his knees in some places and the ground squelched beneath his trainers. It was almost like a marsh. All of the windows were shattered and there was no front door. Rubble clacked in time with his steps as he went inside, echoing from the bare walls. There was no furniture or ornamentation left.

Graffiti covered everything: scrawled names and dates, crude drawings and profanities, even a few professional-type multicoloured tags like the ones Harry had seen in the city. He examined one that appeared to be a quote, written in a loopy, elaborate hand that was difficult to decipher, and covered by other markings towards the end.

“'Come away… human child, to the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand…' Sounds weird, doesn't it?” he murmured to Ginny. There was a hollow quality to the acoustics as he'd read it to himself. “I guess having carpet and furniture makes a difference.”

“I wonder what happened to all of their things?” Ginny said. She brushed her foot across an indentation in the floor where something heavy must have once rested.

Harry frowned. “I don't know. Maybe some of it's in the vault… I've never looked.”

 **“Are you going upstairs?”** Scott asked.

“Yeah, why?”

** “Be careful, there could be water damage.” **

The steps upwards were solid enough, save for some loud creaking. All of the rooms were so barren that Harry couldn't tell what any of them had been used for. There was a larger one with what had to have been a toilet attached (it was tiled, and there were pipes exposed in the floor). Perhaps it had been his parents' room. There wasn't enough evidence to imagine what it could have been like. He made a mental note to go back through the pictures he had; some of them had definitely been taken in the cottage.

In the middle of the hall were large, rigid letters carved deep in the wood of the wall, graceless and dark, like a warning. 'THIS IS HARRY'S ROOM', they starkly proclaimed. There was a crude arrow underneath, pointing the way, though there was no other way to go.

Through the doorway indicated was the destroyed room. The wall nearest the street was completely gone, blown outwards into the garden. Half the adjoining section was missing, and the back wall had been bent under the force of the explosion; it leaned in the middle, exposing the joists where it connected to the ceiling and leaving a gap between it and the floor. A great deal of the roof was piled here and there in musty puddles of rainwater.

The baby's cot in the middle of the room was the first piece of furnishing Harry had seen. He felt a chill run up his spine at the sight; there was no question that the cot had been his, and the state of the room was testament to what had happened there. What he couldn't understand was how it was still there, after so many years.

Behind him, Ginny gasped. “Harry… Is that…?”

“It's mine. Has to be,” he said in a strained voice.

A closer look at the legs of the cot answered his question. The paint had been blasted off of them, and though the iron was rusted he could still see the clumpy drops and streams where the metal had melted and fused to the floor in extreme heat. The cot hadn't been moved because it couldn't be moved, not without tearing up the floor itself.

He stood back up from his examination. He touched the edge of the infant bed hesitantly — it was cold beneath his hands, unpleasantly rough and corroded. The empty space within where he had once rested was full of still water. He stared at his reflection, an odd mirror of the past where he was once again in the cot. A mirror, liquid and somehow not at the same time, a pool of everything that had gone wrong and still could. He had the vague, horrified sensation that some part of him lay drowned there, beneath the mirror, scratching against the other side… That, perhaps, if he reached into the water, a tiny hand might grip one of his fingers…

Ginny's footsteps crunched over the nearby refuse. “How did you survive this?” she said wonderingly.

“Maybe I didn't,” he said dully, still staring into his own green eyes.

Ginny stopped moving for a moment. He heard her walk over to him, and then she took his hand. “Harry?”

He blinked, moving his jaw as words flitted near his tongue; none of them seemed quite right. The mirror in the cot wasn't helpful, offering nothing but his own silent visage.

She tugged at him insistently. “Are you trying to scare me? Because it's working.”

“…I guess I'm feeling something,” he said.

“Take your time,” she said quietly.

He didn't think he could express it properly. The cot, the mirror, the hand in the water… It would all just sound mad once spoken. “This is just really damn strange,” he finally mumbled. “Forget it. It's not much different than my cot under the stairs.”

“Your cot where?” she said curiously.

With a start, he realised he had never told her about his old 'room' on Privet Drive. He had no intention of correcting that oversight. “Never mind. Scott, are you there?”

** “Still here. Gold-Unit is mobile, how about you?” **

“Almost.” Harry glanced around the room. “Did you see us come in?”

** “I'm on an angle, comparatively. I can see the back of the memorial sign through the gap in the second storey.” **

Harry was confused for a second before he remembered that Scott deviated from the usual method of numbering floors; the Kharadjai considered the ground floor to be the first. Harry stepped over a mouldering heap of roofing and went to the half of the wall remaining at the side of the cottage. Placing one hand against it, he leaned out through the empty space and peered up at the elevated trees in the distance.

“See me?” he asked Scott.

** “Hello. Did you find anything in there?” **

Harry searched the forested hill for any sign of Scott, though he knew it was futile. “Weren't you listening?”

** “No, I was talking to Gold-Unit. You weren't yelling so I figured it wasn't important.” **

“Good to know you'll listen up if I start screaming.”

** “So did you find anything or what?” **

“Not really. We're about ready to leave.”

** “Okay, get back to the square when you can. Gold-Unit is narrowing down the objective.” **

Harry waved his hand in acknowledgement. “We're going.”

He avoided looking at the cot on the way out. Whatever it might represent or mean to him, it didn't much matter for the foreseeable future. He'd be better off without the burden of sentiment, that was clear enough. He almost regretted visiting in the first place. But not quite, since he wouldn't have wanted to face such a high probability of death without seeing the cottage and the grave (the cottage was really a grave all its own) at least once.

So that was one burden eased, if only slightly.

***---~**~---***  

“How is the Red Team doing?” Hermione asked, looking towards Ron so it would seem to any observers that she were talking to him instead of radioing Scott.

** “Red-Unit. They're still inside the cottage.” **

Red Team, Red-Unit — as if it really mattered. It was amusing to find that Scott, who had so often chafed beneath the restrictions of Hogwarts, was dedicated to such pointless protocols. “I wish we could see it,” she sighed.

** “Not to belittle Harry's deep psychological traumas, but your half of this mission is actually important.” **

“That _was_ belittling.”

** “I was just being polite.” **

The Hollow was a lovely village, and ordinarily Hermione would have appreciated the opportunity to explore it further, especially considering its rich history. But the mission had cast an anxious pall over the day, and she'd hardly been able to relax enough to enjoy the architecture. Quite the shame, that. So many wonderfully quaint English cottages…

It didn't help that every time she saw Ron out of the corner of her eye she involuntarily tensed, thinking it was a stranger. His beautiful copper hair had been replaced with a dull brown, his blue eyes darkened to hazel. He had rejected some of the more atypical Muggle attires offered by Sophie and was clad in a jacket, t-shirt and trousers.

Hermione had been transformed into a dishwater-blonde with hair so limp and straight that it felt very odd where it brushed her shoulders and back. Her eyes were blue, and she wore a baggy black hooded sweatshirt over form-fitting jeans surmounted with a wide, button-studded black belt. She supposed it was a sort of university fashion? She wasn't really sure what Sophie had been going for. The important thing was that she looked very little like her usual self.

“Where is this bloody place?” Ron grumbled. He was counting the addresses as they walked down the street, making sure they didn't miss any.

“Professor Bagshot must live on the very edge of the village… We aren't far from the cottage at this point,” Hermione said.

They were having great difficulty in locating the house because the address Hermione had found did not correspond to any areas they'd seen. Instead, they kept an eye out for anything obviously magical, structures or signs that were hidden from Muggles. Thus far, all the streets they had walked had been entirely normal. If Bagshot's house hid under a Fidelius, then they were out of luck. It would be down to Scott to determine things then, if he could.

“Scott, can you point us towards any magical concentrations now?” Hermione asked for what was probably the third time.

** “We've been over this. Not from up here.” **

“Then get your arse down here, because we are so effing lost right now,” Ron complained.

** “I'm where I need to be. You're walking west along the south edge of town. There's a dead end coming up on your left through that group of trees, don't miss it.” **

When they reached the trees, they turned down the narrow street that was nearly hidden in the shadows of the pines. The curving hill to the south and west of them loomed closer, gaining a detail it had lacked when they had been at the bench on the opposite side of the village.

Hermione squinted at the ridge, thinking there might be some slight chance she could pick out Scott's hiding place. “Scott, where are you on the ridge?”

** “To your eleven o' clock high, where the oaks are clustered and lean out.” **

A fairly specific hint, but between his camouflage and the constant motion of the leaves in the wind it quickly proved to be useless. “Hmmm… Well, so long as you're there, I suppose it doesn't matter exactly where.”

Ron started to raise his hand, and then just as quickly dropped it. “I probably shouldn't point,” he said wryly. “I can't see him, but I thought I saw the trees he's talking about.”

**“ I'm close enough to track you without the scope. About… a hundred and fifty yards. Southward wind, six miles per hour. Minute of arc, six clicks up, left… Well, south-west, so maybe one-fourth MOA and I'm not going to get a chance to…”**

Hermione was impressed at the amount of maths that was being implied. “Seems like a bit of calculation involved!”

** “It's not too bad at this range, you can ignore a lot of variables and wing it. I just hate having to do it all in my head. I need Sophie to spot for me. Or, you know, some actual Kharadjai tech.” **

“And I need to find Bagshot's gaff, so I guess none of us get to be happy today,” Ron said.

He was right. Hermione needed to get back to the important things. As soon as she studied her surroundings more closely, she found reason for encouragement: the street they were on was quiet even compared to the rest of the small village, shaded by trees and suffused with an air of seclusion. There was magic in some of the houses, she could tell.

“I think we're close,” she said to Ron. “There! Lying on that windowsill, is that a Sneakoscope?”

“Blimey,” Ron muttered, wrapping an arm around her waist and hurrying her past the house with its makeshift burglar alarm, “if it is we should stay clear!”

“Scott, we must be in the right place.” It made sense that they would be so close to the cottage. The magical inhabitants of Godric's Hollow lived near each other along the southern part of the settlement, likely for the sake of convenience and safety.

** “The Repelling Charm extends at least partially down the hill. It might run up all the way to the houses — could just be a Muggle-proof backyard.” **

“We probably should have checked here first, then.”

 **“Might have saved us some time, but we were being careful.  If you have to— movement behind you.”** Scott broke off mid-sentence, his voice instantly gaining the cold, unwavering tone Hermione had begun to associate with danger. **“About fifteen yards north, where the trees end.”**

Hermione snaked her hand out and grasped Ron's sleeve before he could turn. “Slowly,” she whispered. “Let's finish walking around.”

“Yeah, brilliant. I can't get enough of that awful, crawly feeling about my shoulders,” Ron said unhappily.

The half circle at the end of the street would bring them back around to face whoever was approaching. Hermione knew that such casual subterfuge might be necessary, but she was of the same mind as Ron when it came to how she felt about it. Becoming deliberately vulnerable to maintain their ruse was not a pleasant sensation, even if Scott was keeping watch from his perch.

When they finished the partial circuit they could see back down the pavement. The figure coming towards them was short and stooped, and wasn't walking so much as shuffling. The person was draped in enough clothing that there wasn't much else to discern at a distance.

** “Stop and pretend to enjoy those flowers. Make them come to you.” **

It seemed wrong that they should have to _pretend_ to enjoy some fragrant flowers, but there they were. They stood close together under the pretence of examining the bed of bright blooms decorating the front garden of the nearest house. “Here, lean on me,” Ron said quietly. He raised one arm up and put it around her shoulders. “Can you get your wand out under my jacket?”

“What about you?” she whispered back as she carefully extracted her wand, using him as concealment.

“I've got my hand up my sleeve.” He waved his right hand at the flowers as if he were pointing out some of particular interest, showing her the empty cuff. The elastic wrists of the garment had allowed him to hide his wand inside.

The gaunt figure tottered to a stop next to them. Hermione took a quick breath through her nose and turned towards the stranger.

The black shawl wrapped tightly around the person's head made it hard to distinguish anything at first, but when a cloud shifted overhead the increased light revealed certain key features. It was an old woman.

“…Professor Bagshot?” Hermione said tentatively.

Bathilda Bagshot nodded her head in a stilted affirmative, swaying strangely with the motion. She said nothing, but raised a hand as crooked and gnarled as an old stump and gestured at them.

Hermione was momentarily transfixed at the unhealthy, almost corpse-like grey of the appendage. She blinked, trying not to stare. “Professor, we've been looking for you. Did… Do you want us to follow?”

Bagshot motioned again. She was clearly ill, perhaps even close to death. Her clothing alternated between being loose and lumpy, caught up in odd knots and tied together in such a way that it didn't look as if it could be removed. The garments were also wet, as if she had been standing out in the rain. One of her eyes was unfocussed and had a white tinge to it, and the other was dull like an old marble. When the breeze wafted through, a very unpleasant smell came with it. Ron coughed a bit, though he covered his mouth with one hand and tried to pass it off as unrelated.

 **“Tell her you'll follow,”** Scott said.

Hermione smiled tightly at the ancient witch. “We'll be right behind you, Professor.”

Bagshot turned on unsteady legs and began to limp back the way she had come. Hermione and Ron followed at a distance.

“This isn't right, there's something very wrong with her,” Ron hissed in Hermione's ear.

“Well, she is supposed to be a bit batty by now,” Hermione said weakly, but in truth she agreed.

Ron had to take almost comically small steps to match Bagshot's pace. “If she wasn't walking, I'd swear she'd already snuffed it. You can't Imperius a corpse, can you?”

“No, and she doesn't look like an Inferi.” Hermione gnawed at her lower lip, feeling with every step that they were being led into a trap. “I don't know what happened to her, but you're right, this is wrong.”

 **“Listen very carefully.”** Scott's voice came back over the radio with enough abruptness to make Hermione jump. **“Whatever you're following is not human.”**

Ron swore under his breath; Hermione's heart skipped a beat. “How do you know?” she said tightly.

** “Because it's the same temperature as the sidewalk.” **

The infrared spectrum: as Scott had described it, the world in greyscale, bright and dark representing the contrast of thermal emissions. A chill ran down her spine. If Bagshot was emitting the same heat as the wet pavement, then she — or _it_ — was not living by the standard definition of the term. They were following a ghost. She drew closer to Ron, her footsteps faltering.

Scott was still talking, his voice ringing through her distress. **“I could put a shot in it, but I don't know what kind of magic could do this and I'm too far away to look at it myself. I need you to make a call.”**

A call. She needed to make a decision, she needed… To hear what Ron had to say, first, she wasn't alone in her distress. “Ron?” she said faintly.

He was pale, but his stance was strong. “I say Stun her, find out what we're walking with.”

“…On the count of three, then,” she said, tightening her grip on her wand. “One…”

** “Shift right after your shot. Do you copy? Take cover, right side, after your shot.” **

“Yes, I hear you…” Hermione affirmed. “Two…”

“Scott, if you put one of those bleedin' bullets in me…” Ron said, his wand held so tightly in his hand that it was shaking.

“ _Three_ ,” Hermione breathed, and then she swept her wand up and shouted _“STUPEFY!”_ in tandem with Ron.

The two Stunners shot out with a bright red glare and impacted perfectly into Bagshot's back, sending the old woman crashing to the ground with an audible thud.

For about a second they just stood there, staring at the woman they had Stunned. Scott swiftly interrupted the moment. **“I said shift right, Gold-Unit,”** he told them with a clear note of censure in his otherwise flat tone.

Ron grasped Hermione's arm and kicked open a nearby garden gate, hurrying both of them inside and crouching behind the fence. They faced each other in the shade of the slatted barrier, breathing hard.

“Tell me we didn't just kill an old lady,” Ron panted.

Hermione peeked over the top of the fence, wand at the ready. Her eyes widened. “We didn't,” she said, immediately dropping back down. “She's getting up.”

Ron squeezed his eyes shut. “Bloody hell. I sort of wish you'd said 'yes'.”

Bagshot was slowly regaining her feet, moving with the same bizarre, uncomfortably jerky motions that she had before, except even more pronounced. There were several horrible grating noises that reverberated in the silence, like bones that hadn't set properly, unnatural joints clacking and grinding against each other. It made Hermione flinch just to hear it.

“Fuck this,” Ron said through gritted teeth. He hopped up into an extended crouch and levelled his wand over the fence. _“STUPEFY!”_ The red light hit Bagshot right in the torso, but, save for making another wince-inducing sound, produced no results. _“DIFFINDO!”_

The cutting spell sliced across the woman's shoulder, sending tatters of cloth fluttering to the earth. A thin portion of dead grey skin was revealed, sporting a nasty deep cut — and no blood.

“Settles that,” Ron said, dropping back down next to Hermione. “She's an Inferi or something.”

A rather dramatic way to seek proof, considering an alternate scenario would have resulted in a badly wounded Bagshot, but Hermione couldn't argue with results (not until later, anyway). “They're vulnerable to fire! I'll cast low, you cast high, Incendio should—”

** “I'm firing, stay clear of the target.” **

Ron looked at her in confusion. “How clear? Should we run?”

Hermione pressed her eye to one of the gaps in the fence. “I—”

Bagshot took a step towards the fence — her ankle turned in the wrong way, and she stumbled forward. She started to raise her head again, and then… And then there wasn't much of her head left to raise. There was a HISS-SNAP and a THUNK and sort of a wet cracking noise beneath all of that, like an old fruit rind being smashed, and the left side of the woman's head and a bit of her face just sort of… blew away.

As Bagshot collapsed, a sharp, ringing report echoed out from the trees and drifted over the street.

** “Effective fire, target is struck.” **

Hermione clamped her jaw until her teeth ached and furiously fought back her gag reflex, the bile burning the lower reaches of her oesophagus. She would _not_ embarrass herself in front of Scott, she would _not_ , she would not, not, _not…_

“Bloody _hell_ …” Ron groaned in some terrible mixture of appreciative awe and sick horror as he took his own peek.

And then, though she would not have thought it possible, some even worse sounds emerged from Bagshot's ruined body. Hermione didn't want to, but she forced herself to look. Bagshot's jaw widened impossibly, yawning open like a sickly dry cavern, the flesh of her cheeks stretching until they tore, leaving wiggling strings of skin clinging to her yellowed teeth. Her throat bulged as something came _up_ it—

The largest snake Hermione had ever seen burst from the dead woman's mouth in a flurry of scattered teeth and slithered into the nearby bushes with incredible speed. She gasped when a bullet impacted against the concrete where the snake's tail had been less than a second before, shattering the material with a sound loud enough to hurt.

** “Traversing right, stay down… Lost visual. I've lost visual. I lost the snake, guys, I don't know where it is, get out of there. Move it.” **

They ran. Back out the gate, back down the street, past the houses and narrow alleyways. Hermione hadn't heard the staccato cracks of Apparition, but she knew they were coming if they hadn't already. “We're going to the square!” she said between desperate lungfuls of air as she did her best to keep up with Ron's long gait. “Where are Harry and Ginny?”

** “They're on their way. I'm repositioning, thirty seconds.” **

Hermione just needed to know that Harry and Ginny were okay. Once that was ascertained, they could all leave without worrying if someone was being left behind.

Hopefully such information wouldn't take long to acquire, seeing as she wasn't sure they even had thirty seconds.


	15. How to Build a Following

**15**  

 **How to Build a Following**  

\--- 

 _“The best way to survive an ambush is  
to avoid encountering one. But when_  
_reconnaissance fails, you may find_  
_yourself in such a situation despite all_  
_precautions._  
  
_When extracting yourself or your unit_  
_from an ambush, there cannot be enough_  
_emphasis placed on speed. A successful_  
_ambush can consist of many elements,_  
_including advantageous positioning and_  
_strength of numbers, but it is the element_  
_of surprise that so often results in_  
_unquestionable victory. While immediate_  
_withdrawal is the best tactic to use in an_  
_ambush, it may not be possible, and a_  
_fighting force which does not respond_  
_rapidly will soon lose the opportunity to  
_ _respond at all._  
  
_As such, it is vitally important to react as_  
_quickly as you are able. It is perhaps the_  
_only battlefield situation in which blind_  
_decisions can be encouraged, because the_  
_worst response to an ambush is no response.”_

 _—_ Excerpted from _Field Tactics Introductory Manual_ ,  
                        Section III (Imperiarchy Bureau of Information, Third Army Division)

 

_“_ _Watch what, Highground, there's nothing_   
_here but shit and leaves.”_

                        —Last pre-wrench transmission from Victus  
                        Company, 897th SFM, just prior to an ambush 

\--- 

The scope was swaying slightly in the breeze; he didn't want to reposition in the midst of such a tense situation, so he pressed the stock more firmly into his shoulder and grabbed the branch with his left hand. A relatively thin tree like the one he sat in was not the best platform for a rifle. The problem was the hill itself, though, since it was so overgrown that the trees were the only elevated positions with clear sightlines. It wasn't as if he had the time to build a proper stand. Luckily, he wasn't shooting far.

Scott watched through his scope as the distant, hunched figure of Bathilda Bagshot tottered back up the walk. He hadn't seen her actually emerge from any of the structures. He listened as Hermione and Ron planned in hurried whispers.

 **“I say Stun her, find out what we're walking with,”** Ron suggested. He was demonstrating some healthy, proactive paranoia.

 **“…On the count of three, then,”** Hermione said. **“One…”**

The silhouettes of his Primes told him that he was at about a hundred and sixty yards out, more or less. Wind speed was holding fairly steady, so that was a plus.

He felt a reminder to his untrained Primes was in order. “Shift right after your shot. Do you copy? Take cover, right side, after your shot.” There was a fenced-in yard to their immediate right that would provide decent safety in a hurry.

Hermione and Ron were still talking, but he half-listened, none of it was critical. He switched to the alternate channel when he heard Harry.

 **“Scott, we're almost at the square,”** Harry said.

“Copy, Red-Lead. Just be prepared to deviate,” Scott told him.

He didn't have time to say more. Two Stunners, bright through the magnification of the rifle scope, slammed into Bagshot and sent the old woman reeling to the concrete. “Good hit,” Scott muttered. He frowned when his Primes just stood there afterwards. He switched the channel back. “I said shift right, Gold-Unit,” he said curtly. At least they complied once prompted.

His Arctic Warfare Magnum rifle was chambered for .338 Lapua, a round that straddled the line between anti-personnel and anti-materiel. The weapon itself was fifteen pounds and forty-eight inches of steel in a drab green, the barrel ending in a large suppressor. With a round velocity in the vicinity of three thousand feet per second the suppressor wouldn't do much in terms of actually quieting the gun, but it would eliminate muzzle flash and make the point of audible origin harder to identify. He slapped his palm against the handle of the bolt and the bottom of the magazine to ensure they were both fully seated.

Down on the street, Bagshot was moving. Scott figured he already knew at least part of what was going on, but he didn't want to put a bullet through an old woman until he had proof positive she wasn't just crazy or something. A few seconds later, Ron provided that proof with a Cutting Charm that demonstrated just how congealed all of Bagshot's blood had become.

Scott hit the safety and placed his finger on the trigger, aiming at his target's centre of mass. If accurate, the shot would enter just behind the dead woman's right arm and cut through her lungs and heart. “I'm firing, stay clear of the target,” he warned, interrupting Hermione's plans to use incendiary spells.

Precision shooting was a tricky business, especially when the target was moving erratically. Scott moved his aim slightly to the right, targeting a spot just ahead of where she was standing. As soon as she put her foot forward to move in that direction, he started to squeeze.

And that, of course, was when she tripped and flailed forward, dipping downward and throwing off his careful aim. It was too late to readjust, though — he was already in the process of firing. The gun bucked against him, pushing hard into his shoulder. In the confines of the trees the sound was loud enough to make him thankful he'd forgone a muzzle brake in favour of the suppressor. Like the first sharp note of a thunderclap the sound rang out and then echoed back, rattling against the forest and the houses below.

The results weren't what Scott had intended, but they would certainly do. The round tore through Bagshot's frail cranium and left a mushy tapering spray of flesh, jellied blood and bone across the side walk, complete with tufts of white hair as garnish. Not a pleasant picture. Scott was more or less inured, but he could hear Hermione trying not to retch over the radio.

“Effective fire, target is struck,” he reported. It was more out of habit than anything, since Ron and Hermione were quite aware that the target had been struck.

Bagshot's corpse started moving again. He glared into the scope, feeling almost insulted. He'd scooped the reanimated author's brains right out of her head, how could she possibly be moving? The twitching that sometimes resulted from nerve damage, sure, that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. But Bagshot was moving way more than could be attributed to the spasms of a body that didn't understand it was dead. The Inferi in the cave had all died when subjected to massive head trauma. What made Bagshot different?

What made her different, as it turned out, was the massive snake that surged from the dead woman's mouth — pushing her teeth outwards and sending them skittering across the walk — and then slithered into the nearby brush.

Scott hadn't been expecting that. He was so surprised he didn't even comment, struck momentarily dumb by the absurdity of it; he took an instinctual snap shot at the retreating snake, resulting in a close miss.

He tried to track the snake through the bushes, but it was no good. The green reptilian blended perfectly into the foliage, and he lost sight of it almost as soon as it had appeared. “Traversing right, stay down…” he told Hermione and Ron, not wanting them to get into the line of fire. Even as he said it, he knew it was too late. “Lost visual. I've lost visual. I lost the snake, guys, I don't know where it is, get out of there. Move it.”

That was the end of their subterfuge. Scott wasn't entirely sure what he'd just seen, but snakes seemed pretty well up Riddle's alley, and now the clock was ticking. With all of the Primes converging on the town square, he hauled the rifle and its bipod off the tree branch and jumped down. There was a different, taller tree back to the west, in the direction he had come. He would need a better vantage point.

 **“We're going to the square!”** Hermione said, her breathing strained and the jolts of her steps audible in each word. **“Where are Harry and Ginny?”**

“They're on their way,” Scott answered, ploughing through the heavy brush without regard for stealth. “I'm repositioning, thirty seconds.” He switched channels and then combined them again, controlling the two teams' receivers remotely. “Red-Lead, come back.”

 **“There you are!”** Harry sounded nearly frantic. **“Were those shots I just heard? What the bloody hell is going on?”**

“Are you at the square?” Scott asked, ignoring Harry's hurried questions.

** “Yeah, we're right at the obelisk.” **

Then everyone was together and intact, and it was past time to leave. “All Element, Highground. Disapparate. Get on, get out, this is finished. Everyone is clear.”

 **“We're leaving? All right,”** Ginny said, sounding a bit confused at the circumstances.

 **“We'll see you back at Grimmauld,”** Hermione said.

Scott reached the tree he had in mind and leapt up into it. He wanted a ringside seat for whatever Riddle would send in. No doubt it would be informative. He settled his rifle on a branch that was steadier than his previous one and started scanning the edges of town, watching for black hoods.

About a second later he knew something was wrong — the shape signatures of his Primes were far too close to be at Grimmauld Place. “Any unit, Highground. Come back.”

Hermione responded almost immediately, and she sounded scared. **“Scott, we can't get out. An Anti-Apparition Jinx is up over us, it must have been raised as soon as we attacked that snake!”**

He scanned the shape and, sure enough, once he looked past the Muggle-Repelling Charm he could feel the buzzing of an Anti-Apparition field. It was unusually large and strong for something that had come up so quickly. It must have been prepared in advance, somehow, maybe having already been extant in the past, taking advantage of the magical residuum Hermione had once mentioned. Multiple casters, maybe? He needed to remember to ask.

Like the barriers at Grimmauld, it was too big to simply destroy — an outright attack would only tear rents into it, easily repairable. Instead, he started to look for the threads with which it could be unravelled, a time-intensive process that he probably couldn't afford.

He was angry at himself for not noticing. Between his focus on his shooting and the general miasma of magic that hung over the southern section of the Hollow, he'd missed the field entirely. “It must have been masked by the Muggle charm I'm in, it's…” No excuses. “I fucked up, Hermione.”

She didn't seem inclined to blame him, at least not for the moment. ** “** **We're almost to the square, what should we do?”**

Right. Current solutions, not future arguments. He paused, working on the spell, trying to think of the best course for his Primes. “Stay away from the middle and take cover on the south-west side. That field can't go forever: link up with Harry and Ginny, get the Cloak. Harry, tell me you aren't still by that obelisk.” As if in answer, a small explosion echoed from the direction of town. Scott abandoned the shape and pressed his eye to his scope as he tried to mentally calculate his new MOA adjustments. “Harry?”

 **“Death Eaters! We're gonna need help!”** Harry shouted, and even as he did more sounds of a struggle began to rise above the houses.

So much for dealing with the jinx. Through the scope, Scott could see dust rising from a hole in the cobblestones around the obelisk. “Are you hit?” he asked, trying to zero in on the origin of the damage. Harry and Ginny had taken cover behind some overturned tables outside of the café.

 **“Blasting curse, Ginny deflected it,”** Harry said breathlessly. **“They're coming from the graveyard.”**

Graveyard. Scott nudged the barrel upwards and brought the church doors into focus, and then panned right. The gate to the cemetery was gone, as was a good portion of the fence. There were multiple figures in black robes stepping over the wreckage and flanking both sides of the square. He heard more popping sounds in the distance; pulling his head back, he looked down to see even more Death Eaters arriving near the cottage.

The sheer number of them was enough to give him pause. He wasn't going to have time to work on the jinx. He wasn't even sure he could get everyone out alive.

Which was fine. He just had to get the _Primes_ out alive.

“Hermione, they're Apparating in through the jinx, how can they do that?” he said rapidly.

 **“They've likely put up the Anti-Disapparation Jinx. Anyone can still come in, but not leave,”** she replied in a grim tone. **“It's a very large area, though, and they put it up awfully fast. I think it's a proper ward, and they were waiting to raise it.”**

That explained his difficulties with it. Looking back through the scope, he added up what he was seeing with his options and arrived at the only solution he could think of. “Harry, they're coming right at you. So listen close — are you listening?”

 **“We're listening,”** Harry said softly.

“Do you remember how to get back to the park?”

 **“I do,”** Ginny said.

The Death Eaters were closing in on the café, circling the square. Their progress was somewhat impeded by the handful of Muggles they had cornered. They were levitating one man, spinning him around in mid-air, and had a few women backed up against a wall. Scott couldn't hear what was being said, but he knew it was nothing good.

“If you run back down the street just to your right, you'll find the other two,” Scott said, trying to talk quickly without losing clarity. “Link up, get to the park. From there you can get to the car. Hermione, if you can't find the ward edge, then you have the keys.”

 **“The emergency keys you gave me?”** Hermione said nervously.

“I'd say this qualifies. Harry, Gin, I'm going to take a shot. The second I do, you run as fast as you can.”

 **“I'll shield us, Gin, you counter,”** Harry said.

Scott pressed the rifle to his shoulder and began searching the square for the best target. “No countdown. Just be ready.”

It didn't take long to locate the lucky winner, which was good because Scott had no more than a few seconds — and that was a generous estimate — before Harry and Ginny were cornered. The table they hid behind wasn't large enough to conceal the two of them entirely, and the Cloak wasn't much good when they would have to run. The closest Death Eater was a rotund fellow who wasn't so much walking towards to the two as he was swaggering, apparently without a care in the world. A rather odd way to approach enemy number one.

Scott was centring the crosshairs over the man's chest when he shouted, close and loud enough to register over Harry's microphone, and what he said greatly changed Scott's perception of the situation.

 **“You two, behind the table! Budge up and get over with the others!”** the Death Eater yelled hoarsely, and he kicked the short fence around the café’s eating area for emphasis.

The Death Eaters hadn't seen the spell deflection, writing it off as a miss. They'd never recognised the Chosen One and the youngest Weasley at all. Sophie would be pleased to know her work had been so successful in the field.

 **“They don't know it's us!”** Ginny whispered.

“I heard. Run!” Scott said, and squeezed the trigger.

The Death Eater stiffened as if he were about to say something further; instead, Scott's bullet knocked his breath and a good portion of his lungs out of his back. Scott didn't waste time watching the results. As Harry and Ginny stood and ran, he fired four more shots in rapid succession, working the bolt as fast as he was able. The first in the barrage was relatively on target, piercing one more Death Eater through the side (he staggered sideways with the force of the shot, losing his balance and bouncing off a shop window), but the next three all missed, hitting in and around a cluster of enemies and just scaring the hell out of them.

Which was ultimately the point: Scott wanted them to understand that it had not been Harry and Ginny who had shot the first man. They were sprinting away at full tilt even as the shots snapped through the air and blasted holes in the cobblestones.

The Death Eaters didn't seem to entirely realise what was happening, which suited Scott just fine. However, they were about to be given the time to figure it out: Scott had to reload. The seconds required could make a difference in a firefight.

Sure enough, when he slammed the bolt shut and brought the scope back up to his eye he found himself looking at a much emptier square. The Death Eaters had ducked inside the buildings — no doubt whatever chain of command they had was deciding how to handle a Muggle sniper. Scott could be reasonably certain that there was at least one enemy down there that understood what they were up against, if only in the abstract.

They were pinned, for the moment, which was what mattered. He tracked downward, locating the second, larger group of Death Eaters coming from the cottage. They were running through the streets, not far behind Harry and the others. Scott studied them for a moment as they moved, and he didn't like what he saw.

The front of the group was comprised mainly of non-hooded individuals who weren't wearing uniform black robes. They were dressed in a mix of everyday clothing and whatever else they wanted, often with what seemed to be rudimentary attempts to appear militant. Behind them were a handful of actual Death Eaters, robed, hooded and masked. Obviously, Scott was looking at an infantry unit of Snatchers with their Death Eater commanders. The most worrying thing about them, though, wasn't their numbers; it was the way they were holding formation. The group hurried through the town keeping to the same basic organisation, and they never stopped to loot the houses or attack the occasional Muggles they encountered. They were properly coordinated and under orders.

Scott's lip curled in contempt. Fine, good for them. They had fundamental unit coherency skills. Now he would see how well they stuck to their basic training when under fire.

He picked a Snatcher at the front of the pack and aimed for the head, looking for something dramatic. He would take aim at one of the Death Eaters in charge next, but first he wanted a nice, sharp shock to their morale.

The Snatcher ran up to the corner of the next intersection, leaned against the wall to peek down the street, and then picked himself up and began to sprint across the open space.

 _BAM._ The shot hit him on a downward angle about an inch above his left eye and burrowed through his skull, coring it like an apple. The resulting spray of blood and brain matter, the exiting force of which sent his head snapping forward on his suddenly limp neck, was just the image Scott had been looking to share with the corpse's comrades.

Scott was too far away to hear whatever shouts of horror and alarm rose up in the aftermath, but the body language of the other Snatchers was clear enough. They reeled back in terror, scattering around the dead man. Scott quickly moved his view over to snipe one of the commanders while they were frozen in shock — only to have his heart sink slightly in his chest.

None of the Death Eaters could be seen. When the Snatcher had been killed, they had all moved to stand behind the houses on the side of the street towards Scott, removing them from view. And, even as he watched, the Snatchers — who were probably having orders shouted at them — began to do the same.

He swivelled back to the front of the formation and put a bullet through the chest of a second Snatcher and then, running low on options, separated a witch's leg at the knee, as it was the only part of her visible.

Looking up from the scope, he saw the Death Eaters from the square had left the centre of town and were moving quickly in his direction. He knew at that moment that he'd done all he could from a distance. He couldn't suppress both approaching groups of OpFor at the same time.

Which meant Plan B.

He dropped from the tree and set his rifle down, ripping the bandoleers with the .338 magazines from himself and leaving them where they fell. He hated to abandon the weapon, but he couldn't carry it with him. He swung the M4A1 strapped to his back around so that it rested on his front torso, quickly checked the compensator for any detritus, and then flipped the safety.

“Harry, what's your progress?” he called out.

 **“We're with Ron and Hermione and we're heading to the park,”** Harry said, panting into the mic. **“Gin?”**

 **“Just a couple more streets, I recognise that motorcar,”** Ginny said.

Scott made a mental note of Ginny's excellent sense of direction; it was a useful skill to have in a team. He hoped they were moving quickly, exposed as they were. With the four of them together, the Cloak would be only partially effective even if they were standing still; when running, it would barely work at all. It was unfortunate that the magic of the Cloak only functioned when it was worn, and they couldn't simply let it fan out behind them. “Understood. Good luck.”

 **“Good luck?”** Hermione repeated, sounding suspicious. **“Where are you? Aren't you meeting us there?”**

Scott squeezed the stock of the M4, debating exactly how much he needed to tell them about Plan B. “They aren't actually chasing you right now, but that could change if they see you together. I've got their attention right now, so keep moving and hopefully they'll wander off into the trees.”

 **“Okay, then go back up the railway so you can meet us at the car,”** Harry said.

Scott started moving, making his way down the hill on an intercept angle to the Death Eater forces. “There's no time, I'll just aperture out.”

He knew that if he didn't open an aperture before he started a running battle, then he wasn't going to open one at all.

 **“Let us know when you're about to leave,”** Hermione said.

“We'll be out of radio range by the time you get to the car,” Scott lied as he ran. “You can't wait for a signal if I can't give it. The second you're out of the Apparition field then leave, I'll probably already be gone at that point. Don't be surprised if I beat you there and eat all the celebratory biscuits.”

 **“We'll see about that,”** Ron promised.

 **“All right, Scott. Don't be late,”** Harry said.

“Never am,” Scott assured him, and then he muted his microphone, hefted his carbine, and darted over a hedge and into the alleyway that would take him to the streets.

He skidded to a halt against an old stone wall that was part of a house. To his right, just a few doors down, was the street that eventually connected to the square, where the first group of Death Eaters were coming from. Straight on past that was the second group, who were darting from building to building and looking for a good way up to the hill. They had started casting at the trees, Scott could hear it. He could also hear the repeated shouting of Shield Charms; he leaned around the corner and saw, to his chagrin, that many of the Snatchers were holding defensive charms in place at the front ranks while those behind them cast a wide variety of offensive spells, trying to flush him out.

Still rudimentary, he thought, trying to convince himself. It didn't mean anything. Even a Death Eater could have a good idea or two if they tried hard enough.

Time to draw their attentions elsewhere.

The sun was just beginning its long dip below the horizon when Scott leaned out and carefully centred his holographic reticle on a Snatcher who was casting what looked like incapacitation-oriented jinxes at the woods. She was spacing out her spells without much regard for how Scott could have actually moved in the time after his last shot, which was nice to see. The world hadn't turned _completely_ upside down.

He took a breath, let it out, and squeezed.

Without the magnification afforded by his rifle scope he couldn't tell what the damage was. The woman fell over, but in all the flurry of casting no one noticed right away. He ignored the man with the Shield Charm who had been in front of her and placed a few more careful shots into the back ranks. Hopefully, they were lethal. He was able to see one man clutching his stomach because he had fallen out into the street; before Scott could follow up with a better shot, the enemy realised they had been flanked.

It took a second, but not much more than that, for the spells to begin hurtling his way. Before they could really build up a frenzy and pin him, he held down the trigger and loosed a long, ripping burst back at them. The bullets flashed bright against the Shield Charms as Scott almost threw himself across the intersection, moving as fast as he was able.

The side street he was on ran back up towards the square. He ran, legs and arms pumping as his carbine swayed against his chest. He wasn't running for distance, forgoing a strong and steady loping cadence that made full use of his height. He was all-out sprinting, running as fast as he could. He needed to get past the Death Eaters coming from the square before they found out he was on the adjoining road.

He took a sharp right after winding towards the church and found himself viewing the square up close and personal. He glanced around, taking in the damage; the captive Muggles were nowhere to be seen. He hoped they were just hiding.

If they were, he wanted them to stay that way. “THIS IS SERGEANT WATT, I'M WITH THE TA!” he bellowed across the open space. His voice echoed back to him and he had a brief sense of déjà vu, of putting his back to a stone wall and looking out across a similar square with a weapon in hand; not so far away, but separated by time. “LOCK YOUR DOORS, STAY INSIDE AND KEEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS! HELP IS COMING.”

The only help that was coming would arrive in the form of a Ministry Memory Charm. Scott saw a discarded single-use camera lying in a puddle near the café, and wondered how wizarding Britain found all the possible photographic evidence. There were very real bullet holes out there they would have to fix, as well.

His musings would have to wait. The first unit of Death Eaters had doubled back, and, no doubt drawn by his shouting, were coming into the square.

He opened fire immediately, his shots sparking off of hastily raised Shield Charms. The Death Eaters fell back, quickly retreating down the street and out of sight.

He'd gone through something in the vicinity of twenty rounds, he was pretty sure. That left half a magazine. During the mission to rescue Kylie, he had discovered it took about three shots from his M14 to rupture a _Protego_. It probably depended on the caster, but he figured the total would usually hover around that mark. His M4A1 didn't put out the same muzzle energy as the larger calibre M14. He would have to shoot more to down a shield, and although the 5.56x45mm carbine ammunition was a lighter and more compact round than the heavy 7.62x51mm used by the M14 rifle, he had also been carrying ammo for his Arctic Warfare Magnum, the bulky .338 Lapua (8.6×70mm). Accordingly, he was hauling fewer rounds for the carbine.

In other words, a battle of attrition would quickly leave him shooting back with his .45 handguns, and then, shortly after, throwing rocks.

He was putting a few rounds into the walls on either side of the opposite street to make sure the Death Eaters were thinking good and hard before sticking their heads out again when his radio buzzed, and Harry's voice filtered through the static.

** “Scott? Sco— Um, Highground. Come back. …Hello? Scott, we're at the car. The jinx doesn't reach out here and we're about to leave. Are you already gone? I mean, of course, if you were already gone you wouldn't be… getting this…” **

**“He said these radey things don't work this far away, mate,”** Ron said.

 **“Radio. It's a transmitter and a receiver and, never mind, you just weren't listening when he explained it all, were you,”** Hermione said. **“Scott, if you can hear this we're leaving right now. We'll see you back at home.”**

 **“Home?”** Harry repeated, sounding disgruntled.

** “Well, it is for now, Harry, like it or not…” **

**“Come on, you lot! It's not safe, remember?”** Ginny helpfully prompted them.

 **“Right. I bet he's already left,”** Harry said, and then the radio went silent.

That was the biggest problem taken care of. With the Primes safely removed from the field, Scott could breathe a bit easier. Not much easier, though, since the Snatchers were rushing into the square.

The difference between the group of Death Eaters with the Snatchers and the group without had never been clearer. The Snatchers scattered the moment Scott opened fire on them, but instead of simply trying to hide they took cover and began shooting back. Scott switched from target to target, trying to use the first few vital seconds of the firefight to suppress them, fixing them in place and swinging the odds momentarily in his favour.

It was no good. He dropped one man by pounding through a shield and hit the Snatcher's partner once the protection was gone. There were too many: the volume of spells heading his way increased so rapidly that he found himself ducking behind the wall as chips of stone flew past his face. He fired back as best he could, but when he saw Snatchers beginning to come out of the alleyways onto his side of the buildings, he knew he was outnumbered, outgunned, and outflanked. He just barely jumped a nearby hedge and went prone behind a fence before several cutting charms scraped off the wall he had been near.

Suddenly, it seemed that Scott was out of vulnerable targets, and as he lay there on the grass with curses lighting the space over his head, he realised with a sinking feeling that someone on the other side understood the dance — and Scott didn't have a partner.

Now he was the belle of the ball. But he'd had enough of being a débutante: it was time to spike the punch and head for the door. He'd also had enough of dance analogies.

He kept still for a moment, letting the barrage of spells slow somewhat. As soon as he had a bit of breathing room, he hopped onto his feet and backed up to the other side of the fence, letting constant bursts of fire go at every target in front of him, forcing them into cover. The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber; with that, he spun around and ran.

He cut around the back of the church with spells bursting at his heels. Then he headed south, towards the crescent hill.

***---~**~---***  

To say that Harry was upset with Scott was something of an understatement. He wasn't in a full out, screaming rage, not quite yet, but he was _not happy_. And, really, Ron could relate, because it wasn't like he enjoyed being lied to, either.

After arriving at Grimmauld they had expected to find Scott already present (waiting for them in the kitchen and eating all the biscuits, no doubt). But the kitchen had been empty. Upstairs, they had located Sophie and Kylie in the middle of dusting out the drawing room. That was the point at which Harry had started to boil over, but at least he had gone back downstairs so as not to upset Kylie.

There had been a little bit of ranting about 'that bloody lying sodding gobshite', but mostly Harry fumed in silence, standing tensely with his arms crossed, staring at the floor as if he were attempting to see through it.

Ron didn't always get Harry's moods, but he understood this time. Scott had fully and completely lied to all of them, repeatedly, just to get them to leave him there. So they could be in safety as he let the Death Eaters chase him around. So they would just abandon him like a bunch of Slytherin cowards.

It angered Ron to a degree that actually sort of surprised him. Scott had always been a shifty bastard. For the most part, though, the Kharadjai's lies and omissions hadn't been specifically aimed at Ron. Not that Ron liked it when his friends were lied to, either… It just hadn't been quite so personal.

Scott had to have known how Ron would feel about leaving one of their own behind. If there was one thing Ron knew he wasn't, it was a disloyal prick. He'd never abandon his friends. No matter what happened, regardless of the odds, he knew he was with them. And that included Scott.

So, yeah, Ron was just a bit narked about the whole thing.

Hermione was pale and her lips were pressed tightly together, giving her the appearance of worry. And while that was probably a part of what she was feeling, her eyes sparked balefully. “I didn't even think to question it, we were in such a rush,” she mused. “That was nonsense, of course, about the radio. I'd wager they have a range of a couple miles, at least.”

Ron knew her logical dissection of what had happened was her way of dealing with things, but he sort of wished she would just stop, because every word out of her mouth made Harry's fists clench even tighter.

“And he knew we couldn't go back to the village, not with the ward in place. We could go back to the car park, but then who knows where he would be in relation, or how many Death Eaters would be in town, or the Ministry might be there by now, or…” She took a hard breath through her nose, her glare intensifying. “He really did it, this time. Trapped us but good.”

“I could go back,” Harry ground out.

Ginny straightened up from where she had been slumped in one of the chairs. “Not without me, you aren't!”

And not without Ron and Hermione, it went without saying. And since Harry wouldn't drag his friends back into almost certain death or capture, he wouldn't be going at all. Hence the clearly audible noise of his teeth grinding together.

“Don't do that, Harry, it's bad for your enamel,” Hermione told him absently as she stared into nothing, likely still trying to calculate some way to help Scott.

“I DON'T FUCKING CARE!” Harry exploded, and rammed his foot straight into a cupboard door. Ron winced; the wood splintered and he imagined Harry's foot probably had, as well.

“Harry! Are you trying to hurt yourself?!” Ginny demanded.

Whatever pain he was in seemed to have dulled Harry's fury. “…If I was, it worked,” he said after a moment of grimacing.

“Daft sod,” Ginny said, though her tone was more fond than anything. “Why do you have to yell _and_ kick things?”

Harry didn't appear to have an answer for that. The silence returned whilst Ginny watched Harry, Hermione worried, Harry paced (or limped, now) back and forth, and Ron just waited to see what would happen next. He knew that Scott could very well be in serious trouble, but he couldn't think of a single thing they could do about it. The blond bugger had neatly ejected them from whatever fight he was embroiled in.

If Scott had any idea what was good for him, he'd have run and hid the moment he ended up on his own. However, self-preservation had never been one of Scott's more prominent traits (the way he provoked Hermione was testament to that). No doubt he'd done his best to draw all of the Death Eaters his way to allow Ron and his friends their easy escape.

What Ron didn't understand was why, now that they were safe, Scott hadn't come back yet. Ron didn't know how Scott went from place to place (none of them did, really, not even Hermione). But he knew that mysterious ability had allowed the Kharadjai to follow the others when they used Apparition, and that the wards shouldn't matter at all. So there was something else going on.

Harry came to the same conclusion. He hobbled his way over to the stairs. “SOPHIE, WE NEED YOU,” he bellowed upwards.

Her slight voice drifted down, barely understandable. _“Wha…?”_

“DOWNSTAIRS! WE NEED YOU DOWN— bloody hell, I'll just go up there,” Harry muttered.

Sophie yelled something else that Ron couldn't make out at all, but a few seconds later he could hear her footsteps on the ground floor landing. She hurried down into the kitchen, still holding a dust rag. “What? What is it?” she said a bit anxiously, looking at all the serious eyes on her.

“Where's Scott? Why isn't he here yet?” Harry said brusquely.

Sophie blinked. “You didn't mean to leave him behind?”

“No!”

“Sophie, Scott lied to us,” Hermione said, crossing her arms. “He told us he was leaving the Hollow before we did, but now he's still not here. And there were a great many Death Eaters when we left, we were lucky to escape. So why hasn't he just come back yet when the wards won't trap him?”

“Oh…” Sophie said softly, and she began wringing the dust rag in her hands, mindless of the way it dirtied them. “Was he fighting?”

“He drew them off so we could get away, but he said he was keeping his… distance…” Harry trailed off, his brow furrowing in fresh anger as he realised Scott had probably lied about that, too.

Sophie had always carried herself in a very rigid posture, but there was also a tension in her shoulders that fought against the weak smile she tried to maintain. “I see.”

“So? Why isn't he here?” Harry said.

“Well…” Sophie tapped her fingers together, obviously debating how to reply. Ron could have told her that was a mistake; Harry had a bit of thing about people getting choosy with the truth.

“I just want a real answer,” Harry growled.

Sophie's face took on a stubborn cast. “And you'll get one, if you'll be patient and let me decide how to explain things,” she said, obviously not liking Harry's tone.

“It’s really very simple. You open your mouth and tell me the truth.”

She frowned at him. “I don't know why you're mad at me, I didn't do anything!”

“What we'd like to know is whether there is anything we can do to help Scott get back,” Hermione said, cutting in before Harry said something he would later regret.

“There's this saying, that everyone knows…” Sophie began. She stopped and frowned again. “Or, I _think_ everyone knows it, unless Scott made it up and just _told_ me everyone knows it, which is something he might do…”

“And that is?” Hermione prompted.

“Oh! Um, it's, 'opening an aperture in combat is like threading a needle in free fall: you can waste your time trying it, or you can pay attention to the ground'. …I guess that doesn't work too well for you, since you would need a parachute, but you get the idea.”

“So, Scott can't come back while he's fighting?” Ron guessed.

“No, he can't.” Sophie's eyes filled with concern. “Apertures aren't easy to make even in ideal circumstances, especially when they have to be stable enough to move a person through. And when you're in combat, and you can't spare the time to concentrate, and the shape is going all crazy…”

“Then they must still be chasing him, correct?” Hermione said anxiously. “Otherwise he'd have hidden somewhere and come home?”

Sophie didn't look any happier about that scenario than Hermione. “That's likely. He might need to get further away from the town and the Death Eaters, depending on how the shape is acting. Or…”

“Or what?” Harry said agitatedly.

“Harry, _relax_ ,” Ginny admonished him. “This isn't Sophie's fault!”

Harry grimaced and took a few steps back, not really looking contrite but at least trying to be less confrontational.

“There are a lot of things that could be giving him trouble: density, magnetism, shape turbulence, certain types of radiation…” Sophie trailed off when she saw that, with the sole exception of Hermione, everyone was looking blank or impatient. “But I thought there were people in the town? Moogles?”

Ron grinned. “Muggles,” he corrected, glad to hear someone else mispronounce something for once.

“Most of the people there are Muggles, yes,” Hermione confirmed.

Sophie sighed. “Then he's probably going to draw the OpFor out of town, if he can, to protect the civilian populace.”

“And, of course, we're not allowed to help!” Harry said.

“You _are_ the Priority One, Harry, and Scott has a responsibility to keep you from becoming a casualty,” Sophie said gently.

Ron actually held his breath after that, and was pretty sure Hermione was doing the same, because Sophie probably couldn't have pushed Harry's buttons any better if she'd tried. She started to say more, but Ginny glared at the short woman so fiercely that she blinked in surprise and closed her mouth. Harry had his back to them, so Ron couldn't see how close they all were to being treated to a repeat performance from the summer before fifth year, but he reckoned it was pretty damn close.

Fortunately, Harry was self-aware enough to realise that, too. He spun around and stormed up the stairs without another word. Ginny followed with one last blistering look at Sophie.

“Well, that was rude,” Sophie said after a moment of silence.

Ron looked over at Hermione. “You know what I like best now that Ginny's snogging Harry? We don't have to go after him and try to talk any more.”

“Ron!” Hermione said, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “How easily you toss your best mate duties onto your sister.”

“She wanted that one, so she can have it. Just like you and trying to convince Scott he's wrong about something.”

Hermione immediately sobered at the mention of Scott. “I'd say I can't believe he put us in this situation… but I can. I hate feeling so helpless. He _knows_ I hate feeling this way, and he still did it!”

Ron hated it as well. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “Me, too. I owe him a punch to the gob when he gets back.”

Hermione laughed against his shoulder, but there wasn't much humour in it. “I hope he'll come back in good enough condition that it will be all right for you to punch him.”

That was not a good thought. Ron remembered the night in Gryffindor Tower with the seeping hole in Scott's arm. “That bomb hole he had in him was right fucked. At least he won't ask _me_ for an Episkey.”

“Language, Ron,” she protested without much enthusiasm. They stayed in their embrace for a minute or so, and then she pulled away. “Come on, let's have a sit down. I'm exhausted and there's nothing we can do.”

As they walked towards the stairwell, Ron noticed that Sophie was still standing near it. Her complexion was pale and she was staring at nothing, idly crumpling the dust rag she held. It occurred to him that her state of mind might not be so far away from the rest of theirs.

“Think he'll be all right?” he asked her.

She jolted out of her reverie. “Oh! Yes, I'm sure he'll be fine. He's one of our best, you know, so he probably won't be captured…” she ended her half-hearted assurance waveringly.

“He's the most dangerous bloke I've ever known. I guess I haven't known that many, but it's got to count for something,” Ron told her.

“I bet he'll be back soon,” Sophie said in something approaching her usual tone. “Please don't mention this to Kylie, though, I don't want her to worry herself sick.”

“We won't,” Hermione promised.

Ron just hoped Scott made it back soon, because it wouldn't take Kylie too long to notice his absence.

***---~**~---*** 

It was getting dark out.

The setting sun was to his advantage, and every darkening shadow made it less likely his pursuers would find him once he disappeared from their sight. Unfortunately, they knew it. Their chase, once more careful and considered, grew reckless.

After carefully pulling them out of town by slowing his gait and taking shots at intervals, Scott had initially outpaced them once he reached the woods, moving more quickly on foot than they were capable of. But, again, he had underestimated them (or, as he was beginning to suspect, their new leader). The Death Eaters had split the Snatchers into smaller, more mobile groups. Some of them had begun Apparating to keep up, sometimes even flanking or appearing ahead of him, depending on what they were able to see. Others had taken to brooms, and although Scott's gunfire had forced them to keep a respectful distance, it also revealed his position.

Several flying enemies had hovered over him at considerable height, spotting for the rest and ensuring escape would not be easy. The encroaching darkness made such high altitude reconnaissance less useful, and soon it would be impossible to see him from the air at all. The Death Eaters were becoming desperate, running themselves ragged to keep up.

Scott hadn't seen any sign of Riddle himself, which was a bit insulting. Apparently the self-proclaimed Dark Lord didn't feel that Scott was worthy of any personal attention. Scott didn't know if the enemy had been ordered to capture him, but, judging from the damage the spells sent his way did to the forest, he sort of doubted it. Taking him alive would be a happy accident.

He was sporting the usual scrapes and bruises that came from sprinting through the woods, along with some other assorted minor lacerations from shrapnel. The only direct hit he'd taken had been a Full-Body Bind that had sent him crashing into the rough soil. Luckily, he'd stopped himself with his face, which now stung like a motherfucker. He didn't know what the damage was, but he probably wasn't ready for date night.

He hurtled over a small ravine and crunched through a dead thorn bush. Sliding across the loam, he regained his balance and took cover behind the largest nearby tree. At first, he didn't see anyone. Then, dark shapes flitted under the canopy to his right.

He scowled at them. He could stop and just try to hide, but the forest didn't offer much in the way of concealment. Short of crawling into a hollow log (he hadn't seen any big enough) or something else equally obvious, there were no options that wouldn't be easily discovered in a thorough search. He might have expected a less than thorough search in past engagements, but now… Now, someone on the other side definitely knew what they were doing. If the DEs lost track of him, they would double back and look. He had to get beyond their radius and disappear.

He had just decided to leave the approaching group behind and try his luck in a different direction when something smacked into his left hip.

He grunted in pain and rolled with the blow, bending at the waist and sliding partway down the trunk. He looked down to see dark blood spreading out from a sliced section of his camouflaged pants. Slapping his hand over it, he glared back to where he thought he had been hit from, trying to twist around enough to raise his weapon one-handed.

Sure enough, a hooded Death Eater was crouched on the short ridge to what had been his left. When Scott met his eyes, the man fell flat to his stomach and crawled backwards until he was out of sight.

“Good call,” Scott muttered.

_“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

The first group he'd spotted was still a ways back, but close enough for their frontrunner to shout a curse. Scott snapped back to face forward and snuffed out the green light shooting towards him. The Killing Curse was fairly slow, he'd noticed, compared to many of the other dangerous spells. The Severing Charm in particular had enough velocity that Scott found it difficult to counter even when he knew it was coming.

Scott returned fire, the sharp crack of his carbine reverberating wildly through the close-set trees. The Snatcher under fire didn't fall, running to a spot where he could no longer be seen. Scott was almost positive he had hit the man. Another Snatcher dove behind a nearby tree, but didn't travel far enough to be safe: Scott shredded the trunk at neck level, getting a nice gout of arterial spray for his trouble.

The rest retreated, but Scott could hear more behind another grove. “DOCTOR! DOCTOR, WILLARD IS HIT!” a woman screeched.

Willard — the man who hadn't fallen, the man with the punctured neck or someone else? Whoever it was, their suffering had given Scott a chance to get moving.

He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the burning in his side. The cut was deep, but it didn't hamper his movement enough to warrant healing. He ran, peppering the short ridge with a few random rounds in case the Death Eater there was thinking about being proactive again.

There had been more of them closing in than he had thought. Spells rattled against the trees, showering him with bits of bark. Scott might have spun around to suppress them and give himself some more room to run, but he'd done too much of that earlier. He was down to his last two magazines.

He was beginning to wonder if they weren't also tracking him the old fashioned way. He was moving at such speed that his trail was apparent to anyone who knew how to follow broken twigs and faint footprints. And they had been diligent enough about holding a good search pattern that he hadn't been able deviate his course much, heading mostly south.

Opportunity arrived in the form of a stream that trickled through a gully ahead of him. With the rightmost group of foes concerned with their casualties, he had a chance to move that way, and the stream provided just the path he needed to—

—weightless, wet, pain—

—confuse the trail, what happened?

He gasped out a mouthful of water, the feeling rushing back to his limbs and the ringing in his head beginning to subside. He braced his hands and pushed to extract himself from the mud but he wasn't rising, his left arm was simply rolling him over. He raised his head and forced it to look to the right, sliding his chin along the ground.

There was blood all over the dirt, frothing red in the water. A few gobbets of flesh were scattered along with stained pieces of camouflage fabric. He couldn’t move his right arm because most of his right shoulder was gone. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark, glistening hole in his shoulder blade, the bone splintered out into the muscle. It was just a throbbing red mess. He didn't know what had hit him; it must have been hot, because the skin around the injury was red and blistered, and wisps of smoke rose from it.

He couldn't feel it. That was very bad, because the first rule of shape triage was 'what you cannot feel, you cannot heal'. He needed the pain to provide his body with information, to intimately know the location of the injury. Under less pressing circumstances it was ideal to dress the wound and wait until his body was prepared to handle it, but, since he didn't have a great deal of _time_ , he grabbed a jagged nearby rock and dug it into his ruined appendage.

That, he most certainly felt. He howled into the mud, writhing with the agony, not trying to stifle it. The burning point of pain was where he shunted his energy. The pain intensified, then changed into a sort of intolerable pressure; just when the sensation was almost unbearable, it stopped.

His right arm relaxed into a more natural position as the wound healed, and sweat immediately ran down his face. He was instantly tired. All of his muscles felt lax, uncooperative. It had been a deep injury with at least second degree burns. A couple more like that, and he was finished. Replacing anything was exhausting; replacing bone was brutal.

He forced himself to stand, shoulder still badly hurting. The actual hole created by the spell would be gone, the bone and muscle restored — mostly. Shape triage in the field was not the most reliable of medicines, especially without assistance. He couldn't even look at the wound to make sure it was fully healed, and there was always a chance that there were problems below the surface of the skin that he would have to tend to later. The blistered area around the wound was still there, as were all the other related lacerations and bruises. The little things were hard to get, and usually not worth the energy.

He had only been down for about thirty seconds, but he could hear the Death Eaters closing in. He took off down the stream as fast as he could, his shoulder sending spikes of hurt through him with every jolt. At least his hip had gone numb.

The stream coiled around through the trees, changing direction a few times but always heading generally westward. By the time the sun had sunk completely below the horizon he had left the water behind, climbing up the stream bank and continuing west. He jogged down a slope and found a narrow road at the bottom. It was paved, clearly of Muggle origin. He looked around for a way to identify it and perhaps figure out where he was based on his memory of the maps of the Hollow. That was when the lights caught his eye.

Weaving through the trees across the road were the twinkling lights of lit wands. He counted six, maybe seven individuals, no doubt looking for him. He didn't see any Death Eater hoods. They could have been Ministry people, which wasn't much better.

They might have Apparated ahead of him, or the net was wider than he'd thought. Either way, there were probably more still behind him. The lights were moving away from him, so it would be a good time to hide.

He went down the flooded ditch along the side of the road until he came to a drainage pipe which ran through a brief hill. Crouching in the water, he peered into it. He couldn't say it appealed to him, but it would do. He just had to gather himself for a minute or two until he could piece together an aperture pattern. All the fighting had left the shape a whirling mess (it hadn't been even a fraction as bad after the mercifully brief encounter at Kylie's) and his head was pounding. He really just wanted to lie down.

It wasn't until he was already a good twelve feet or so inside the pipe, sinking into the filthy water, that he remembered that it was, duh, _full of water_. He couldn't open an aperture in water. That much fluid mass was more than he could transport.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his stinging eyes, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Both possibilities could bring unwanted attention, so instead he just took off what was left of his jacket and turned it into an acceptable (if extremely soggy) pillow.

Any further problems would have to wait until morning, after his pursuers were gone.


	16. As You Were

**16**

**As You Were**  

\--- 

 _“Those not in the business often imagine  
_ _integration as being a constant struggle  
_ _against the whims of the shape and of  
_ _stubborn Primes. In fact, integration  
_ _much more closely resembles a business  
_ _partnership than a form of herding — you  
_ _aren't chasing cattle! There's a level of  
_ _autonomy inherent in the process that can  
_ _come as a surprise to the inexperienced.  
_ _But it's crucial, because it's just not possible  
_ _to always be in control.”_

—Captain Paul Skinner, Ret., _Life in Providence_  

\---

It was a very subdued breakfast that Ginny walked in on a bit before nine in the morning.

Sophie and Kylie were absent, possibly still in bed. Harry, Ron and Hermione were eating in silence, eyes on their food. There was a noticeable tension to the proceedings. It wasn't especially surprising, considering one of their own was missing.

And, yes, Ginny could admit to herself that she thought of Scott as 'one of theirs'. She wasn't exactly the best of chums with the Kharadjai, but he was part of the group and part of the fight, and… Well, he had come through enough times in the past to earn some respect. Besides, she was not so petty as to wish harm on him. She didn't want Scott to be _gone_ , and certainly not to be dead, or whatever his equivalent was. She just wanted him to quit taking the piss and stop messing with Harry's head when it suited him.

She had really expected Scott to come waltzing in not too long after they started worrying the night before, probably making some smart remarks as he did so, the bloody liar. But his continued absence had given her anger time to cool. By the time she rolled out of bed to find her friends in the midst of an eerily quiet meal, she had discovered her own measure of concern.

Scott was somewhere out there risking life and limb for the cause, and although she was still angry that he hadn't allowed her the chance to do the same, she recognised his dedication. And she also knew that if she'd continued to fight, then Harry would have, as well. So Scott had done some good, even if he hadn't gone about it in a good way.

“Why didn't you wake me?” she asked Harry when she seated herself next to him.

Harry shrugged listlessly. “Nothing's happening. Reckoned I'd just let you sleep.”

“No word, then?”

“No.” Harry stared into his cereal as if there might be some answers floating within.

Ginny leaned around him to see what Ron and Hermione were thinking. Ron was shovelling food into his mouth without much in the way of expression, but Hermione was watching Harry with a look of resignation. Like Ginny, she knew what came next.

Harry did not disappoint. “If he's not back by noon, we go looking for him,” he said, dropping his spoon with a clatter.

The noise woke Ron up. “You think it'll be safe by then?” he said, sounding unconvinced.

Harry's dark expression was answer enough: he didn't much care.

Ginny sighed and looked to Hermione. “Do you want to try and talk sense into him, or should I?”

“I'm not sure I have the energy for something so exhausting,” Hermione said wryly.

“I'm sitting right here!” Harry said.

“Harry, going back is not a good plan. The Ministry will surely be there, even if the Death Eaters aren't,” Hermione said, trying logic.

“You think I'm that daft? I've thought about this,” Harry told them forcefully. “I'll go back to the car park under the Cloak. I can look around, suss out what's happening, and maybe see where Scott went. Then we can go from there.”

“We work in teams, remember? I'll go with you under the Cloak,” Ginny said.

“I'll move faster by myself. Less chance of being seen,” Harry told her in a tone that was obviously intended to be as reasonable as possible.

Which was a bit insulting, but she got the point. She could be a little shirty when it came to being left behind. Could he blame her? She had been so peripheral before. He wouldn't have even taken her to the Department of Mysteries if she hadn't insisted then, too. She had to fight for every concession. She had to constantly prove her right to be present, and she didn't feel like anyone else had to do that.

Or was that just her own insecurities talking? Well, whatever it was, she didn't like the idea of Harry buggering off by himself with nothing but the Cloak for company.

She took a breath and tried to match his reasonableness. “I get that, but if you find trouble—”

Right in the middle of her sentence a clatter came from the stairs that about made her jump out of her skin.

They all whirled towards the staircase with eyes wide and wands out just in time to see Scott slide down the last few steps on his bum, legs splayed out in front of him.

“I do believe,” he said in a hoarse yet cheerful voice, “that the ol' leg is giving out.”

Harry was out of his chair in an instant. “You stupid idiot! You're fucking insane, what have you done to yourself?!”

“Bloody hell, you're dirty,” Ron said with disgust. “What happened to your leg?”

“Let me look, let me look at it,” Hermione insisted, trying to push past the boys.

From where Ginny was standing, Scott was a little over half dead. His military clothes were so filthy that they were more brown than green, and his left thigh was stiff with dried blood, running almost to his knee. He was missing an entire sleeve from his shirt, the skin unnaturally pale around the shoulder and flaring out into a nasty collage of red and yellow burns and pus blisters. His face looked like he had used it to batter down a door: covered in cuts, both lips split, nose swollen, topped with a nice fat black eye. Every square inch of him was covered in dried filth. He smelled positively awful.

He grinned at them, revealing red-tinged teeth. “Morning, mates. God save the Queen.”

Harry tossed up his hands and stalked away.

“Ow! What happened to your face, mate?” Ron said, wincing sympathetically at the plethora of scrapes and bruises.

“Born this way, sadly. Doctors say they can't do anything for me.”

Hermione huffed with exasperation and a touch of relief that she couldn't quite mask. “Your disfiguration is temporary. We don't mind looking at you, it's the _listening_ to you we have trouble with. Ohhhhh…” She flinched away from Scott's mutilated shoulder after nearly steadying herself on it. “…I'll take a look at that in a moment. Lift your chin up.”

Scott complied. “Will I ever be pretty again, nurse?”

“I'm not a miracle worker,” Hermione said dryly. “Harry's right, what on earth did you do to yourself?”

“Took a spill. Got lucky, though, my face broke my fall.”

“Maybe I can help some,” Ginny offered.

Ginny was startled and almost jumped back when Scott reached out and grabbed her shoe, squeezing it. “It is weird how happy I am to see your scowling face?” he said, smiling up at her.

“Yeah, it is,” she confirmed.

“He's riding his usual post-mission adrenaline high. With this level of bruising I'd say he's likely concussed, as well,” Hermione said. “Can you check that hip and make sure he's not still bleeding?”

Ginny wasn't squeamish when it came to blood. Less than Ron was, anyway. His expression as he tugged down Scott's frayed trouser leg (it tore right off without much effort, and it was obvious he had taken a nasty Severing Charm at some point) was more than a bit queasy. Good thing he had a strong stomach to counterbalance how revolted he was.

Although, perhaps she had taken pride in her medical fortitude too quickly. The gash on Scott's hip was truly disgusting, and when she cast a few cleaning spells on it she could see what she thought was bone down through the gaps in the scabbing.

She glanced up to steady herself and found Scott gazing at what she was doing with curiosity. “That smell south of cheese to you? Not really bad, right?”

“You smell really, really awful,” she told him honestly.

“Yeah, but not gangrenous, right?”

“Isn't it a bit soon for that? Besides, you told me you were resistant to gangrene, if I recall,” Hermione said.

“I am. It's all good.”

Very little about his state was good. Ginny did what she could, casting at the wound until the edges turned pink and the centre was fully scabbed over. Hermione had done more or less the same for his face, lessening the swelling. Neither of them were trained Healers with access to the kinds of resources available at St Mungos.

“I have some potions that can replenish your blood, Scott, are you going to need them?” Hermione said. “I wouldn't ask, but they'll be difficult to replace.”

“Should be fine,” he said, sounding a bit more lucid after their administrations.

“I'm not sure what to do about your shoulder. I cleaned up the cuts, but I don't have any salve for the burns.”

“I'll fix all this stuff later, when I can. I'll slap a bandage on it, jump in the shower until the water stops running red and then pass out for awhile. You guys can yell at me when I wake up.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes. I'm glad you remember that we have good cause to.”

“Got that right,” Ron muttered.

“Harry's about ready to go nuclear over there. I can't wait for that chat,” Scott said, and Ginny couldn't help but think he actually meant it.

“Please don't antagonise him,” Hermione requested. “You know what you did, and we know why you did it, but that doesn't mean we don't have valid reasons to be angry.”

“Uh huh,” he said absently, tapping away at his mobile.

“You!” Hermione huffed. She stood and used her wand to clean her hands. “Ron, can you help him get up to the loo?”

“No need; help is on the way,” Scott said, tucking his mobile away.

Sophie came rushing down into the kitchen, still holding her mobile. “Oh, no…” she groaned when she saw Scott, pressing a hand to her mouth.

“Come on, now. You've seen worse,” Scott said. “And I even have pants on, mostly.”

“So I should just be happy about the state you're in? Because of pants?” she demanded.

“Well, maybe not _happy…”_

As Sophie was even shorter than Ginny, and Scott was about the same height as Ron, the size and weight differential made it utterly bizarre to witness Sophie so effortlessly haul Scott up the stairs. She probably weighed about half as much as he did, even without all the weaponry he was still carrying.

Now that Scott was safely at Grimmauld and he wasn't in critical condition, Ginny turned her attention to Harry. He was standing near the cupboards with his arms crossed.

“Looks like Scott will be fine,” she said, walking over to him. “He wasn't quite as bad as he looked.”

“He's such a twat,” Harry seethed.

“Are you going to go shout at him?” she said hopefully. It was sometimes nice to see Harry assert himself when it came to Scott (and, as a side bonus, an angry Harry was an extra attractive Harry, with his lean muscles tense and his green eyes flashing).

Harry huffed out a laugh, dropping his arms. “No. I'll wait until he tells us what happened, _then_ I'll shout at him.”

Ginny gave him a disbelieving look. “You're awfully calm for a bloke who was just in a strop.”

Harry shrugged a bit sheepishly. “Yeah… It's hard to stay angry with him when he took a beating like that.”

Ginny wouldn't acknowledge it out loud, but he was right. “I'm sorry we didn't find out more about your parents.”

“I don't know what I was looking for,” Harry admitted. “Just… something that wasn't there.”

Hermione approached the two of them, breaking into the conversation. “Discussing the mission?” she said. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “It's awful what happened to Professor Bagshot, the poor woman… And now the whole mission was for nothing.” Her eyes widened, and she held out an apologetic hand towards Harry. “Oh! I'm sorry, Harry, I wasn't implying it was a waste. I'm sure the visit did you some good.”

“Maybe,” Harry said apathetically.

“I'm sure it did,” Hermione repeated awkwardly. “Well, be sure to write to Remus and let the Order know what happened. If they hear about it, they'll want to know you're all right.”

“They'll want to know we're _all_ fine,” Harry stressed.

“Yes, of course,” Hermione said with embarrassment. “That's what I meant.”

Ginny just rolled her eyes. Hermione was right about the Order, or at least some of its members, when she said they would be worrying mostly about Harry. But, seeing as he loathed any reference to his friends being more expendable than him, she really should have known he would latch on to her grammatical slip. Ginny always appreciated Harry's defence of her importance, even if she wished he would be more realistic sometimes.

Harry looked dourly towards the stairs. “We'll see what Scott has to say when he's ready. Unless we kick his arse before that for lying to us.”

“I don't know about you, but I'm still more than a bit put out with him,” Hermione declared.

Ginny was, too, though she was still bothered by the nagging thought that if Scott _hadn't_ lied then Harry would have willingly stayed in the line of fire, no doubt waiting for the opportunity to sacrifice his well being for someone or something. She felt like Harry was actually angry not because of the lie, but because when it came to self-sacrifice, Scott had beat him to it.

She saved that opinion for later. “If you want to kick his arse, I'll hold him down,” she offered.

Harry's mouth lifted in a small smile, which was progress considering the mood he was in. “I'd like to see that.”

“What? You'd like to see me jump on another bloke?” she said innocently.

“Ugh. Not anyone, but especially not Scott.” Harry grabbed Ginny's wrist and pulled her over to him. “I didn't have a mum to teach me to share.”

Ginny leaned into him. “Too dark, Harry.”

“Ron would have laughed.”

“No, he wouldn't have.”

“Scott would have laughed.”

“He's a prick, though.”

“Yeah.”

Hermione glanced over at the table, where Ron had resumed his meal. “I'm going to finish eating. I need to get back to my research if we're going to find another Horcrux.”

Harry quickly sobered, and Ginny sent Hermione a glare that the older girl didn't notice. He had been so close to cheering up, and then Hermione had to go and remind him of Horcruxes. “I don't know what we're going to do. Bagshot was our only lead,” he said.

“Not true; Scott told us there was a Horcrux to the north. It's not much to go on, but we might be able to narrow it down,” Hermione countered.

“How?”

“Manually, if we have to. The closer we get, the more precise the shape should be.”

“Only if the shape is still showing him this thing at all,” Harry pointed out. “His first clue might be the only one we get.”

“Well, let's hope that's not the case.” Hermione briefly hesitated. “It's not ideal, Harry, but we may need to bring more people into the know. The Order have resources we don't, and the more of us that are looking, the better our chances are.”

Harry's eyes darkened, his stance gaining a clear tension. “And the better our chances of Riddle finding out what we're doing.”

“I know, but—”

“Dumbledore left this to me. If he'd thought the Order could help, he would have told them,” Harry said with a tone of finality.

But Hermione could be equally stubborn, and she didn't take the hint and drop the subject. “He couldn't have foreseen everything. And we needn't assume that the Order would require specifics to be helpful, just a few questions about artefacts in general might lead us in the right direction.”

“It's too risky,” Harry said, intractable.

Hermione began to respond yet again and Ginny was done with the whole conversation. The two of them were going to circuitously argue for who knew how long, and they didn't need Ginny standing there to do it. She grabbed a scone and sat down next to Ron, who was also ignoring the clashing of his best friends in the background.

“Feeling all right?” she asked him, wondering if his silence was a symptom of something more than fatigue.

“Been better, but, haven't we all?” he said philosophically.

“True.” She pushed the crumbs from her scone around on the table with her fingers. “How do you think Bill and Fleur are getting along? It's been a bloody dreadful honeymoon.”

“I reckon they're fine, Bill's tough and Fleur is…” Ron didn't finish, perhaps wondering what, exactly, Fleur was. “I guess she's probably not too keen on Lila being there, though.”

Ginny did remember the two blondes clashing on several occasions. “Fleur will mind Lila if she knows what's good for her.” Ginny couldn't imagine Lila tolerating much of Fleur's superciliousness, and she sort of wished she could be there to see it if Lila finally lost her temper. “Too bad you won't be there to jump to her defence.”

Ron glared at her. “That was fourth year, and she's partly Veela! I'm not made of bleedin' stone, I can't just shrug off whatever they do to you.”

“You do just fine now.”

“It took some practice,” Ron admitted.

“And some practice snogging Hermione?” Ginny said slyly. “Gave you a new focus, did it?”

“Piss off. I've given you hardly any shite for all the times you've tried to suck Harry's tongue out of his head!”

Ron had, in fact, been quite non-confrontational when it came to her relationship with Harry — at least by his usual standards. Which made sense, considering Ron had been pushing for Harry to get with Ginny from day one. He just wasn't comfortable witnessing the fulfilment of his hopes. “I'll give you that, big brother.”

“Glad to hear it, baby sister.”

“Why does it have to be 'baby'?” she protested. “Why can't it at least be 'little'?”

“Because you'll always be the baby of the family,” Ron told her, and he poked her affectionately in the forehead.

“Isn't that the truth,” Ginny grumbled.

“Thanks for talking to Mum, by the way. That was nicely handled, with all the shouting.”

“I should have given that phone to _you_ ,” she said spitefully. “Have you tell Mum why your _baby_ sister is out dodging Death Eaters.”

Ron shuddered. “If that ever happens, I'm telling her you Imperiused me.”

“A true Gryffindor, you are.”

The bickering was familiar and comforting, a relic of a time before the two of them had made the transition from students to soldiers. Ginny had never admitted it to her companions (and especially not to Harry), but she worried greatly about her brothers. She knew they would never stay in the safety of Shell Cottage. She understood that compulsion towards action and wouldn't expect anything less of them, even as she often wished they would stop expecting less of her.

***---~**~---*** 

“Careful, careful, careful!” Scott hissed as Sophie tried to extract him from his flak jacket without abrading his shoulder.

“Oh, _now_ you want to be careful!” she said, still upset with him.

“No, I want _you_ to be careful,” he corrected.

“I am! Stop wiggling and hold still!” she berated him.

Scott fell blessedly silent for a minute or so as Sophie did her best to disassemble his gear as she worked around his injuries. It was a role she had performed more than once. She was used to weathering snide comments from Lila about 'stripping her brother'. Under other circumstances, it was true that Sophie might have taken secret pleasure in handling him in such a pseudo-intimate fashion; however, the condition he had be in before he needed someone to help extract him from his kit took attraction out of the equation. Especially this time, when he smelled absolutely terrible.

“I smell like the inside of an ass,” Scott noted.

“That's what happens when you marinate in ditch water all night,” she informed him.

“But am I tender?”

“Tenderised.” She brushed a few gentle fingers over a particularly bad burn. “Can you feel that?”

“Very much,” he said, wincing. The burn disappeared, leaving a patch of unnaturally clean skin behind. His posture sagged a little lower.

“Now the hip,” Sophie said. “You don't need a pinch, do you?”

“Nah.” Scott tensed up; when he relaxed, his breath came out in a wavering sigh. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and he wiped at his upper lip. “Got it?”

She checked his hip, making sure the injury was well healed. There was still significant bruising at what had been the tips of the cut, but the deep wound itself was gone. “Looks okay for now,” she told him.

“I'll worry about the face later. Try to pretend you're still attracted to me.”

“I'll try.”

She helped him into the shower stall and then left to stand outside the door. She had led him to the master bedroom where Kylie usually slept, since it had an attached bathroom. At the very least, she could afford him more privacy than he would have received at a forward hospital.

“There's room for two!” he called to her as he tossed his ruined pants over the top of the curtain.

Or maybe he didn't care much for the privacy. “So?” she shot back, trying to sound indifferent.

“So, you know, the whole wash cloth thing was kind of a standing offer…”

Some day she would go ahead and take him up on one of his inappropriate propositions just to see what would happen. She liked to think he would be taken aback, caught off guard and left stammering some sort of retraction. A more rational part of her brain thought that was pretty unlikely, but she still enjoyed the idea of throwing him so thoroughly off balance.

“I was looking over your quick sheets,” she said, steering him towards a different sort of conversation altogether. “Did you want me to update some of the statics?”

“I've been meaning to take care of that,” he said, starting the shower. He hissed with the first shock of pain as the warm water coursed over his injuries. “I just don't see myself leaving any time soon, even for just a couple days.”

“What about… involuntarily?” Sophie said reluctantly. She didn't care for the thought, but Scott had already flirted with capture.

“Good point. I'll fix the sheets, just promise me you won't let them sideline you if they bring some subs in.”

“I don't see why they would…”

“Who knows. I was just saying,” Scott mumbled.

He stuck to his washing from then on, offering no more salacious remarks or job-related commentary, which was a sure sign of exhaustion. She waited patiently for him to emerge. As the rush of the fight continued to wear down, she knew he would keep getting slower and more deliberate in his motions, until the act of just moving was a chore. Hopefully, the hot water would help with the soreness.

Sophie straightened up when the door to the room creaked open further. She assumed it was one of the Primes come to check on Scott and perhaps demand more immediate answers, but instead the strawberry-blonde head of Kylie peeked around the frame.

The girl's wide eyes darted towards the open bathroom door, and, upon hearing the sounds of the running water, she blushed. “Sorry,” she whispered, beginning to withdraw.

“Scott's in there, he's okay! He just needed some help because he's really tired,” Sophie volunteered, wondering if Kylie was getting the wrong idea about Sophie's presence.

“That you, Kylie?” Scott called out, his voice hollow as it echoed around the shower.

“Yes,” Kylie replied in a voice he couldn't possibly have heard.

“It is Kylie, she wanted to know how you were doing,” Sophie said, assigning motivations to the girl who might have just been trying to go into her own room.

“I'm spring fresh, at least according to this soap,” Scott said, and the strain of projecting such a loud and ostensibly well voice was becoming more apparent in his gruff timbre.

“See? He'll be fine,” Sophie said.

Kylie's mouth turned downwards. “Is he hurt?”

“He's okay. He just needs to sleep,” Sophie told her.

“You're lying,” Kylie said accusingly, and then she fled.

“Kylie! Wait…” Sophie trailed off.

“What?” Scott said, oblivious.

Sophie dropped her hands and sighed. “I fudged the truth a bit and told her you were okay, but she knew it wasn't entirely true.”

“She ran off?”

“She called me a liar and then ran off,” Sophie said sadly.

“Showing some spirit, nice.”

Sophie wasn't quite so pleased. “I wish she had showed some spirit at someone else…”

She was prepared to refuse to help Scott dress himself for bed, but by the time he stumbled out of the shower he was so spent that he didn't even make such predictable comments. She helped him get up to the room with the motorcycle posters (which was how she always thought of that room, steadfastly ignoring all the girls in bikinis) and he collapsed on the mattress, asleep almost as soon as she pulled the covers up over him.

It was funny how the shape-enhanced Kharadjai physiology worked in combat. It was hard to slow without sputtering to a stop, dependent on inertia. No longer immersed in the rush of the shape and fuelled by adrenaline, Scott crashed.

She stepped back out in the hallway and shut the door behind her as quietly as she could (good thing she had oiled all the hinges recently). She took her phone out of her pocket and called Lila.

Lila answered quickly. “Speak,” she said.

“Hello, this is Sophie,” Sophie told her.

“I'm aware.”

Sophie hesitated. Lila sounded terse, which might mean it wasn't a good time for a call. But Lila often sounded like that. “Are you busy?”

“I wish.”

Right. Save for the coming and going of the Order, Lila hadn't had much interaction with the war effort. “Scott just got back from Godric's Hollow. He's a little banged up, but mostly okay.”

“And why didn't he come back with the Primes?” Lila asked, having been made cognisant of their return with a different call the previous night.

“There were noncoms all over the AO. I guess that was expected, but Scott led the OpFor away and then hid until just a little while ago.”

Lila was silent for a moment. “Hid where? In water?”

“In a drainage tube with water.”

“That moron,” Lila groaned.

“Well, he _was_ in a hurry…” Sophie half-heartedly defended him.

“Don't use up his excuses, Strauss, I'll hear all about it later. Listen, when he wakes up tell him that the Order really wants to talk to Harry. Like, _really_. Remus Lupin is getting desperate, he even came to me. And they usually do their best to pretend I don't exist.”

“Okay. Should I just tell Harry?”

“Run it by Scott. Then tell Harry, if you want to make it look like you came to him first.”

There was a deeply manipulative facet to integration that Sophie had never been completely comfortable with. She understood that it could be useful and even necessary, but she didn't see the point in misleading Harry for no real purpose. Lila automatically established the option, whether it was needful or not. “Um, I'll just tell Harry since Scott's asleep. He already knows that Harry needs to see Lupin some time.”

“Your call. Hey, I have to go stop Fleur from sabotaging my pound cake with her shitty French culinary 'skills'. We should talk more later.”

“Sure, of course!” Sophie said, eager to have a real conversation with her friend.

“Have fun with the Primes,” Lila said with a hint of warmth.

“Okay, I'll talk to you later!”

With that taken care of, there wasn't much to do except go back to cleaning and organising. And, while she had a strong and abiding belief in the value of cleanliness, she had to admit she was a bit tired of the tedium. Scott's interruption would have been welcome had he not managed to injure himself so thoroughly. And he had tracked mud everywhere, so there was that. Cleaning spells were highly convenient, and she had made full use of _Scourgify_. Some staining defied the magic, however. Perhaps one of the Primes could offer a more powerful cleansing spell.

Still, the upper hallways were looking better. The training downstairs had been creating a constant mess, and, rather than get caught in an endless cycle of picking up after another mattress explosion, Sophie had decided to start from the top down. The corridor she walked through was no longer quite so grimy, and the shadows didn't seem as deep. She didn't think anything could completely dispel the miasma of gloom short of a full remodelling. Grimmauld Place seemed designed to be… well, _grim_.

And Sophie just didn't understand why anyone would want that, she really didn't.

She peeked into the drawing room and found Kylie gazing out one of the windows. Sophie thought about saying something, but decided it would be better not to. The slight girl probably needed some time to calm down (which was a strange state of affairs, considering Kylie's general temperament).

Sophie found the Primes down in the kitchen, all of them gathered around the table with various foods. There was a bit of tension in the air, and after a moment of observation Sophie determined that Harry and Hermione were avoiding looking at each other. There must have been an argument.

She wasn't sure how well received any news of Scott would be, all things considered, but she offered some regardless. “Scott is mostly healed and in bed. Once he wakes up he should be ready for…” Sophie searched for the right word.

“Interrogation?” Hermione offered.

“He's trained to resist those,” Sophie said humorously.

“I should hope he'd try to resist a bit less this time,” Hermione said with a frown.

Ron shook his head. “The ponce probably doesn't think he did anything wrong.”

“Perhaps not. But he may be convinced to do the right thing even if it's for the wrong reasons; that is, in the interests of team unity,” Hermione explained.

“Or we may have to take turns hexing him until something goes through,” Harry said darkly.

Sophie hoped that he was joking, as violence was a _very_ unproductive way to get Scott's cooperation. “Would you like me to speak with him first? I could let him know, that… That things are a bit tense right now and he should behave himself.”

“You really think he'll care?” Harry said cynically. He pushed his empty bowl away and went up the stairs, probably to make use of the makeshift target range.

“He might,” Sophie said to his retreating back.

Hermione sighed, watching Harry leave. “That's going to be an uncomfortable conversation.”

“You mean 'shouting match',” Ron said.

“No, I meant conversation, but I'm being optimistic.” She glanced up at the clock. “I'm going to get back to research. Sophie, would you let me know when Scott is up and about?”

“Of course,” Sophie assured her.

“I'm going to get back to bed,” Ron said sleepily, stifling a yawn.

“Lazy prat,” Hermione said affectionately.

After they left, Sophie turned to Ginny, who had been oddly silent. The red-haired teen was gazing towards the stairs with a thoughtful expression on her freckled features. Sophie had probably interacted with the youngest Weasley the least out of all the Primes, mostly due to Ginny's absence during the Christmas party of the previous year. She knew that Lila thought highly of the girl.

Ginny noticed Sophie's scrutiny. “I'm not that upset,” she said, meeting Sophie's eyes. “I understand why he lied to us.”

Sophie blinked in surprise. “You do?”

“He did it to save Harry.” Ginny looked back towards the stair again. “How can I be angry with him for that?”

“That's very mature of you, Ginny!” Sophie said admiringly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I'm still hacked off about _other_ things. Like what he said to me the other night. And how he obviously doesn't think we're worth a damn in a punch-up. He wasn't even _at_ the Department, where does he get off acting like we can't handle ourselves?”

Sophie was not an integrationist, and she wished that Scott or Lila were present. It wasn't that the siblings always said the right thing; it was more that, even if they said the wrong thing, they were at least screwing up their own mission. Sophie didn't want to be blamed for anything.

Oh, my… Shameful thoughts, those were. She was no coward, she reminded herself. “It's not personal, it's just common sense. You can't run as fast as Scott can. Neither can I, I'm short, too! So because of that, and all his experience, he was the best choice to create a distraction.” There! Clear, logical and concise. Lila would have been proud.

“He obviously thought he was the best choice, since it's one he made for us,” Ginny said sarcastically.

Sophie had a good idea of Scott's reasons, but she hadn't been there. She didn't want to say any more, not before Scott had a chance to explain himself. “You'll have to ask him about that.”

“If I can get a word in edgewise,” Ginny sighed. “Harry'll probably drown the rest of us right out.”

Sophie made a mental note to take Kylie elsewhere for that confrontation. There would likely be an unfortunate amount of bad language.

Ginny stood and placed her bowl in the sink. “How's Lila doing?” she asked.

“Oh, I just spoke with her! She's fine, doing very well,” Sophie overstated. “She said she was baking with someone named 'Fleur'.”

Ginny laughed. “You should have been there for the wedding. Lila doesn't bake with Fleur, she sort of bakes _around_ her.”

It was true that Lila hadn't referred to the other woman in very complimentary terms. “That's sort of what it sounded like.”

“But everyone is okay? The family, I mean,” Ginny said more seriously.

“Lil didn't mention any problems. Oh, but Remus Lupin wants to speak with Harry, she did say that.”

“There's got to be somewhere we can meet with him,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “I mean, just to be sure he's not Imperiused or something, then he can come inside.”

Sophie thought about the surrounding areas in Islington; she had taken a couple excursions to get a feel for London, and studied the maps Scott had given her. “Highbury Fields isn't too far from here, that's a nice open space.”

“So no one can sneak up on us?”

“Right! Clear sightlines are very important.”

“I'll tell Harry about Remus and be sure to mention it, then,” Ginny said. “Last thing we want is a repeat of what happened in the Hollow… Whatever did happen. Me and Harry were fine, and then all of a sudden there were Death Eaters everywhere! I haven't gotten the full story.”

Neither had Sophie, and with Scott asleep she wouldn't for awhile. “All things in good time.”

Ginny snorted as she went up the stairs. “You sound like my mum.”

That wasn't a bad thing, was it? Sophie thought that Mrs Weasley was very nice, by all accounts. She had never met the Weasley matriarch and probably wouldn't, seeing as Sophie had no cover story. Although, with the way things were developing, fake histories might soon be useless. Scott and Lila were expending less and less effort maintaining their false identities. The pattern of events had made such things increasingly obsolete, the lies impossible to support. So perhaps Sophie _could_ introduce herself to the Weasleys before too long.

She was startled out of her thoughts by an incoming call. “Hello?”

“Strauss, you got a minute to talk? I'm free for now,” Lila said.

Sophie grinned. “Sure!”

***---~**~---*** 

Harry knew he was brooding. He did. He wasn't so caught up in his own little world that he didn't even know what he was doing. It was more that he didn't care.

What else was he supposed to do? Watch Scott sleep? Boring and, honestly, more than a bit creepy. He didn't want to sit in a dark room staring at some other bloke on a bed. If Scott woke and saw Harry there he'd have something clever to say, and Harry wasn't about to hand him that kind of ammunition.

So he sat in his own room and wrestled with his thoughts. Not easy, but familiar. It passed the time and kept him occupied, and, so long as he managed to keep his brain from drifting to the _really_ bad things —  like Sirius or losing Ginny or the rest of his friends _stop it_ — it wasn't too painful. Just sort of melancholy, really. Sadness could be bittersweet.

When Ginny walked into the room, he reckoned he was about to catch some shite. She'd never had much patience for his frequent, crippling bouts of self-pity. And he couldn't blame her. He couldn't stand himself, sometimes.

She sat next to him and began running a soothing hand over his back. The press of her fingers against his tense muscles made him realise, as if he never had before, just how tiny her hand really was. She was so small, his Ginny. It made his heart ache, and he wasn't sure why.

“Breathe, love,” Ginny murmured.

He did so, drawing in the air with a long, shuddering breath. He started to understand just how tightly he had been holding himself when his posture began to loosen.

“What brought this on?” Ginny asked him.

He couldn't even begin to tell her. “I'm mental,” he stated.

She moved closer to him. “You're _Harry_. And it's not like things have been easy.” She sighed. “I wish we had gotten together sooner. Before you got so used to doing this alone.”

Harry tried not to think about the years it had taken him to pull his head out of his arse. It seemed so unfair, what might have been. He could imagine taking Ginny to Puddifoot's — they would have laughed about it. They could have danced together at the Yule Ball, snogged under the mistletoe. He was happy for what they had, but whatever they _hadn't_ had was his fault. And now it felt like time was already running out.

He tried to put that into words. “…I wish I had done everything with you,” he told her with all the honesty he could wring out of his heavy heart.

“We still can,” she told him fiercely.

He felt the weight of the future settle onto him and squeezed his eyes shut, just trying to stay upright. His eyes snapped back open when Ginny put her hands on his face and forced him to look at her.

“Don't give up before we get a real chance at us,” she said shakily. “I want a real life after this, and I want it with you. Don't you _dare_ sacrifice yourself, because I know you would.”

“I already tried to sacrifice this, remember?” Harry said, indicating their relationship and trying to deflect Ginny's demand with a bit of self-deprecation. “That didn't work out so well.”

She was not distracted. “I want you to promise me.”

“Promise _what?_ That I won't die?” he said with a strained laugh.

“Yes.”

“Stop it. You're barmy, I can't promise that.”

“You can't even lie?” she said plaintively.

“No.” He shook his head. “Not about that.”

Her lips thinned and she looked down at the floor. “I'll bet you think I'm being daft.”

He wasn't going to lie about that, either. “A little bit, yeah.”

“You know why, don't you?”

It was a trick question, it had to be. Girls always did that: they presented you with a seemingly innocuous question that was not, in fact, innocuous at all, because you were expected to bloody well know the right answer already. If Harry was honest and said _no_ , he hadn't a clue what she was talking about, that was wrong and he was in trouble because he should be able to read her mind. And if he took a guess at it she'd know he was just guessing, so same result.

And he really resented it, because Ginny didn't usually do that sort of thing. She was so up front, and the only kind of drama she started was the kind where she was telling him where he could get off.

So he tried to think of what someone else would say, and ended up channelling his inner Scott. In his current situation, that was a lot like channelling his inner Ron, with one subtle distinction: Ron would blurt out the first thing that came to mind, not knowing if it was wrong. Scott would blurt out the first thing that came to mind, not _caring_ if it was wrong.

“Because you love me?” he said carelessly.

He was just about to smack himself for being such a smarmy git and save her the trouble when she nodded firmly. “That's right,” she said.

He blinked at her, trying not to let his surprise show. At least she wasn't taken aback that he had guessed right — she hadn't been setting him up for failure.

“Because I love you,” she repeated. “And the last thing I ever want to hear is you talking about dying for the rest of us.”

He remembered her admonishment for his black humour at the Three Broomsticks, what felt like a lifetime ago. “You lot talk about dying for _me_ all the time!”

“We talk about _fighting_ for you, Harry! We'll die if we have to, but you seem to think you're going to die no matter what! It doesn't have to be that way and it's _not_ going to,” she declared with the hard, blazing look that he so admired.

He didn't know how to respond to that. He just wanted her to be right. They sat there for a few more moments whilst she calmed down and he looked everywhere but at her, knowing that the longer he studied her perfect, freckled face, the closer he would be to some kind of breakdown. She was so beautiful that sometimes it hurt, because beautiful things didn't last in Harry's life.

She hissed something under her breath that he didn't catch, and her slim arms were placed around his shoulders. “Just _stop_ ,” she pleaded.

“No, I'm not… _ignoring_ you, I just…”

“What?” she said, close to his ear. “Tell me.”

He shook his head helplessly. “It's hard to explain. It's… You're too perfect, and I can't lose you.”

She stiffened. “Is this about chucking me again?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

Harry pulled off his glasses and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to relieve the pressure he felt. “It's about…” he stopped, put his glasses back on, and shook his head again. “It's about me being a moron.”

“You're not a moron. You just act like one sometimes.”

“Yeah, cheers.”

“Oh, come off it. You're not even angry, look at you. You're trying not to smile!” she teased.

He was. “No, I'm not,” he said stolidly before giving in to a tired grin. Enough was enough; sitting in a dark room wasn't accomplishing anything. “You want to go shoot some more cups?”

“We could have a cuppa first, it's about teatime,” she said.

“It's always teatime around here. Come on, then.”

They were about halfway down the stairs when she grabbed his arm. “I almost forgot — Sophie said that Remus wants to speak with you as soon as you can.”

“In person?”  
  
“Yeah, like he said in his letters. She told me there's a park nearby we could use to meet, it's nice and open. What do you think?”

Harry thought that he didn't like treating Remus as a potential enemy. But, given the situation, there wasn't much choice. They had to be careful. “Okay, so we would meet him there, make sure it's really him, and then let him back in.”

Ginny looked unsure about the last part. “You want to let him back into Grimmauld?”

“Yeah. It's Remus, Gin, he's not going to try and make me go back,” Harry said. He had that much faith in his former professor.

“I know that, but what about _me?_ ” she said, revealing the reason for her reluctance.

Harry understood. And he couldn't blame Remus or Mrs Weasley if they were to attempt to return Ginny to safety; it wasn't like he hadn't tried something similar. But Ginny was at Grimmauld Place, and by Harry's side, to stay. He still would have preferred to keep her away from the danger, and if she _asked_ to leave he would never say no, but he wouldn't force her to go. And he wouldn't let anyone else do it, either.

“It will just be Remus, no one else, or I won't agree to it,” Harry told her. “And… your being here isn't open for discussion.”

Her expression softened, eyes glowing. “Thank you,” she said simply.

He smiled crookedly. “For what? Not being a prat, for once?”

She grinned up at him, making him realise just how close they were standing. “More or less.”

He couldn't resist her when she looked like that. He leaned in for a kiss and she met him halfway. What started as mild gesture of affection quickly evolved into an extended snog, her tongue tracing his mouth while he sucked at her lower lip. They finally parted with a smack that was embarrassingly loud in the stairwell. He hoped there wasn't anyone around to hear it.

“All right,” he said once they broke apart. “Let's get the maps and take a look at this park.”

“In a minute,” she said. She put her arms around his middle and threaded her fingers. “I'm not finished yet.”


	17. Parts Per Million

**17**

**Parts Per Million**

\--- 

_“Every exchange is important. Every_   
_word has value. You may not see it_   
_at first, and you may never see it, but_   
_that does not alter the logic of causation._   
_The shape tumbles out in an infinite series_   
_of interlocking parts, creating unlimited_   
_configurations with patterns too far_   
_removed from their origins to be anticipated._   
_The hard limits of your perception will_   
_prevent you from creating accurate_   
_predictions. That does not mean you should_   
_ever stop striving to create outcomes that_   
_are likely to be favorable. To surrender to_   
_the chaos is to lose all sense of efficacy,_   
_and doubt is swiftly followed by inaction.”_

                        —Oritorius Arthur Eamon Grant 

\---

 

Remus Lupin stood near the corner of Highbury Crescent and Highbury Place. He knew the streets and where they led, despite never having been there before, because he had located them on a Muggle map. The war memorial at the intersection was just ahead of him: a woman on a column holding aloft some sort of laurel, with cannons flanking the pedestal. Harry hadn't owled much more than very basic directions, and the statue had been a key landmark.

Which was shrewd, and Remus was glad to see Harry taking such precautions. He knew that he was somewhere in the general vicinity of Harry's Fidelius-hidden home, but probably not especially close. He couldn't recall the name of the place no matter how hard he tried. He was sure he had been there before, however. He remembered the dark halls and stone kitchen. He remembered Sirius' room, the one he himself had stayed in, the entry hall with a loud portrait and the umbrella stand Tonks frequently tripped over. If Harry allowed Remus into the safehouse, it would be like recovering from selective amnesia.

The evening sun waned on the horizon, casting an orange glow over the park. A handful of Muggles came and went on the other side of the short, wrought-iron fences whilst Remus stood beneath the trees. He had come alone, as requested. Lila Kharan had helpfully taken him to the park, leaving him there in the afternoon. He had used the extra time to ensure there were no Death Eaters anywhere near the meeting point.

He was grateful to Lila for the use of her Muggle vehicle, even as he remained uncertain whether she could be trusted. She had jumped at the chance to assist Remus with transport, perhaps looking to prove herself. Unlike some other members of the Order, he already felt she had demonstrated her intentions with her defence of The Burrow. It was her _motivations_ that remained suspect, along with her inscrutable history.

Remus was looking forward to seeing Harry for many reasons, not the least of which being that he missed the lad. But he also would be taking the opportunity to ask some pertinent questions. Even if Harry didn't know much about Lila, Scott was sure to. Perhaps he would be more tractable than his sister.

Remus checked his watch: it was three minutes after the time Harry had given. He wouldn't worry until the ten minute mark, and it was possible his watch was a bit fast. He began to look around to see if he could spot Harry, or perhaps Ron or Hermione, before they reached him. There were a few pedestrians across the way: a man climbing into his car, and a woman in a yellow frock strolling past the fence.

Remus started to pivot and look to the other street when the woman in the frock turned onto the path where he was standing. He straightened up and took a step closer to the trees, not wanting to be in her way. Muggles didn't usually believe in werewolves, but he knew that his rumpled appearance and shabby clothing could be off-putting. He didn't want to come across as being some loitering unfortunate. He'd had the Muggle police called on him before, once, when he had been at a park.

He gave her a half-smile when she walked near, along with a respectful nod of his head.

“Professor Lupin!” she said brightly.

To say he was startled would have been an understatement. “…Yes?” he said, trying to remember if he had met her before. She was young enough to have been one of his students at Hogwarts, but she didn't look familiar.

“You are Remus Lupin, correct?” she said, her accent standing out starkly with the speaking of a full sentence.

“Yes, I'm Remus,” he confirmed, searching her features for any hint of familiarity. “Have we met?”

“No, we haven't. I'm here on Harry's behalf,” she explained.

“Of course,” Remus said, feeling a bit disappointed that Harry hadn't come in person. But it wasn't as if the boy's caution was unwarranted. “Well, you found me. What's next?”

“I have a few questions… But first, take my hand, please.” She held out one petite, well-manicured hand.

Remus hesitated for a moment, unsure of what the woman was trying to accomplish. Still, he had his wand concealed in a pocket, and it wasn't possible to turn a person into a Portkey. He reached out and took her hand, his larger one engulfing hers. “Very well. And what will this accomplish?”

She smiled at him and shook her arm slightly, prompting him to release her. “Just checking on some things! Okay, questions, questions, let's see…” She scanned a piece of paper that she took from a handbag slung over one shoulder. “Um… How did James save Snape's life?”

Remus grimaced at the memory. “James intervened so I wouldn't inadvertently kill Severus after I transformed. In light of recent events, perhaps not as fortunate as I'd once thought,” he said, thinking of Dumbledore's funeral.

“Okay, um… You made a special map, what was the password for it?”

A much more pleasant question. “'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good',” Remus told her with a small grin.

“Two for two!” she cheered. Remus raised an eyebrow, amused at her exuberance. Who was this tiny, ebullient woman? “Last thing, and it says on here… How did you and Tonks end up together?”

Remus frowned slightly. He had expected another question about a more distant past. “Some of the details are… private. But I had been aware of her feelings for some time, and, though I felt the same, I avoided her. A misplaced sense of responsibility, I suppose. I'm not the most stable of romantic partners,” he said with a dry chuckle. “She cornered me after an Order meeting and told me she'd had enough of my excuses. She had been very much on my mind, and I was running out of ways to convince myself. And she is nothing if not convincing, when she gets determined.” He looked to the woman in the yellow frock but she said nothing, still staring at him with great interest. Her large eyes were a lovely shade of green, reminding him of Lily. “That's about the size of it. Did I pass?”

“Oh, there's no answer written here,” she said, waving the paper at him. “I guess someone just wanted to know.”

Remus caught the parchment and took it from her, quickly skimming it. There, inked in messy handwriting, were the questions he'd been asked: and no answers of any sort. “There are no answers here at _all_ ,” he said, head snapping back up to look at her.

Her eyes sparkled with mirth. “It's not me you had to impress!”

“'Lo, Remus,” a voice said from somewhere to his left.

He nearly drew his wand before he remembered: the Invisibility Cloak. “Harry,” he said through the breath he let out.

“Sorry if I scared you. We thought we'd be extra careful, what with…” Harry didn't need to say more.

“I understand,” Remus said. He'd have done the same, in Harry's position. “Were you satisfied with my answers?”

“I reckon it's you,” Harry said with a smile in his voice. “Just follow Sophie, she'll take you to the others.”

They started walking, Remus staying close behind Sophie. He still didn't know who she was, but Harry seemed to trust her. As they went she chattered on about the park and how nice it was, seemingly without any need for a response. Remus was more interested in her accent than in what she was saying. It was highly similar to Lila's, flat and rhotic, though he thought he detected a few minor variations. He knew that Lila was an American and suspected that Sophie was as well, with perhaps some regional divergences (the last Americans he had spoken to had been from Salem, and sounded quite different).

Soon they arrived at a row of houses undistinguished from the rest, a flat-roofed tenement that still didn't seem familiar, even though he knew it should. There was a rustle from the empty air, and Harry's hand appeared with a slip of parchment.

Remus took and examined it.

**Welcome back to 12 Grimmauld Place**

And just like that, he remembered everything.

“Well, I'll be damned,” he murmured, watching as the houses shrunk and grew apart, revealing the entrance he knew so well.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny were standing just inside the doorway, wands out. “Harry?” Ron said cautiously, eyes on Remus.

“He's fine,” Harry said.

Hermione immediately tucked her wand away, beaming. “Professor Lupin!” she said excitedly. “It's so good to see you!”

“And you as well,” Remus warmly replied.

The interior of Grimmauld was not quite as shadowy as he remembered, though signs of a recent scrubbing likely accounted for that. The light travelled a little further, the walls were not so grimy, and even though the colours of the décor were as gloomy as ever at least they weren't so overbearingly dour. He wondered if the spiders in the dining hall were gone, but the door was shut as they passed it.

He paused once they reached the kitchen, taking in the sight of the room where he had met with the Order so many times. “Hard to believe I couldn't remember this old place,” he remarked.

“Why would you want to?” Harry said, looking at the surrounds with aversion.

“There are good memories here, too, Harry,” Remus lightly reminded.

Harry didn't reply to that. He sat down at the table with the others flanking him (Sophie excused herself, going back upstairs). Remus looked at them from across the table and realised that they were presenting a united front against him. Had they become so isolated as to perceive him as a possible threat? Or was it more that, as an adult, he might try to force them to abandon the mysterious enterprise left to them by Dumbledore?

Perhaps he should address that first. “You should know that before I left, your mother,” he began carefully, nodding at Ron and Ginny, “made some demands of me. Ginny, she asked if you would come back and see her.”

“So she can lock me up?” Ginny said derisively. “No, thank you.”

Remus couldn't discount that as a possible outcome. “I thought I would pass the message along, at the very least. I'm not here to try and force any of you into anything. Not that you would let me,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “I'm rather outnumbered at the moment.”

Ginny didn't relax. “You can tell my mum that—”

“Ginny…” Harry said softly.

“She doesn't understand! _Still!_ ” Ginny argued. “She sent him here—”

“I came on my own,” Remus corrected her, not wanting that misconception to gain traction.

“I don't want to get between you and your mum,” Harry told his girlfriend, guilt etched on his face.

Ron winced, shifting in his seat. “There wasn't a way around it, mate.”

“There was one way,” Harry said roughly.

“That was never an option. I told you that,” Ginny said coldly.

“I know. Really, I know,” Harry repeated after Ginny gave him a disbelieving look. “Just…”

“If you tell me that I should have stayed behind one more time there is not a person here who will blame me when I hex—”

“I'm not saying that!” Harry yelped.

“Ginny, please, I'm not here to take you home,” Remus assured her, trying to head off an argument between her and Harry that he didn't fully understand.

He hadn't known there had been any question as to whether she would accompany Harry, Ron and Hermione on whatever task the deceased Headmaster had assigned them. But Remus admittedly didn't know a great deal about the circumstances. He had always assumed that Ginny was as thick as thieves with Harry as the other two were. Perhaps that had not been the case.

Ginny frowned at him. “You just said that Mum wanted me to go back.”

“I said that I was instructed to _tell_ you that your mother wanted to see you.” Remus leaned forward towards the girl. “Ginevra, I'll be honest: I don't think you should be here. It's too dangerous. But—” he continued when her glare intensified, “—I don't believe that _any_ of you should have to be here. It seems there's no way around it, at least for Harry, and I know that none of you would ever abandon him. I certainly can't change things now.” He looked directly at Harry, trying to make his sincerity as clear as he could. “You know that if I could take this off your shoulders, I would.”

“Even if you could, I wouldn't let you,” Harry replied, subdued but steadfast.

“I know,” Remus said, his sorrow for Harry almost a physical presence. It wasn't right, the things Harry had to bear. Thank God he had the friends he did.

Hermione chose that moment to change the subject. “Professor Lupin, how is everyone in the Order?”

“Better, now that we're all in contact. I wish I could say the same for the Ministry.”

The children (though he couldn't really think of them that way any longer, could he?) all exchanged worried glances. “We've been out of touch for the most part; I haven't seen the _Prophet_ since we left The Burrow. What's been happening?” Hermione asked.

“You-Know-Who has completely taken over; they're barely trying to be subtle, these days. They've installed Thicknesse as Minister, and we're fairly certain he's under the Imperius,” Remus told them grimly. “Right now, our biggest concern is the Muggle-born Registration Commission.”

Hermione paled, and Ron immediately reached out to steady her. “Registration?” she said faintly.

“Nothing so benign, if you could call something like that benign to begin with. The _Prophet_ ran a story on a false study done by the Department of Mysteries. It's absolute rubbish, of course, but I suppose the right sort of people will believe it. It says they discovered that magic can only be inherited, and therefore Muggle-borns must have taken their magic through theft or force. Supposedly, they're intended to present themselves for registration and questioning, but, I can tell you, few come out of the Ministry once they go in.”

“That's absurd!” Hermione gasped. “The logic is utterly flawed!”

“I know, believe me,” Remus reassured her. “It's just a cover for people who already accept that sort nonsense. The Snatchers I wrote to you about, Harry, they enforce the Commission's laws.”

“They do a lot more than that,” Ron said. “They came after us with the Death Eaters.”

Remus sat up straight in shock. “What?”

“We were… on a mission,” Harry said vaguely. “The Snatchers were there. Scott could tell you more than us.”

“Right, Scott,” Remus said, letting the 'mission' reference go for the time being, as it was obvious they weren't going to say more. “His sister actually brought me here. Is he around?”

Hermione gave Harry a warning look, which was interesting. “I'm afraid he's not available for the time being; perhaps later,” she said.

Remus raised an eyebrow, concerned that he was so obviously being misdirected. “Are you sure? Lila would appreciate some news from him, I'd wager.”

“Not this time. Sorry,” Harry said with real regret in his voice.

“Very well,” Remus said, trying not to let his disappointment show. “I expect I'll stumble into more than a few things you won't want to talk about.”

“I didn't want it to go this way,” Harry muttered.

“I know you trust me. I just wish you trusted me a little more. Though not as much as I wish your father had trusted me, just a… little more…” Remus sighed before he could stop himself, expressing more of his deep regrets than he had ever intended.

Harry looked stricken. “This isn't like that! If it were just me, I'd—”

“I know. I don't blame you for anything. Whatever Dumbledore left you with, it's more important than my feelings.”

Harry shook his head. “Scott and Lila aren't about that.”

“Then I doubt I'll be discovering what they _are_ about. I'd need a pint of Veritaserum to find out what Lila had for breakfast,” Remus said, trying to inject some humour into the proceedings.

Hermione was still wan, but smiled weakly at his joke. “That sounds about right.”

“You said in your letter she'd said some things to Bill,” Harry pointed out.

Remus nodded. “Unclear things, yes. She told him she's a soldier, and that both her brother and herself have been working to ensure your success. Which is a comfort, but not especially detailed. With all her interest in the Order's plans, it's hard to accept her when we know so little.”

“I trust her and Scott, and so did Dumbledore,” Harry said. “I don't know if that means much to the Order…”

“It does to me,” Remus said. “I think the others will at least be willing to let Lila assist us in some way. She just has to prove useful. I doubt that will be much of a problem for her after what I've seen.”

Harry still looked guilty. “I'm really sorry I can't tell you more. It's not fair to you.”

“Very little about any of this is fair, Harry,” Remus told him. “I'm sure you're only doing what you must. And, speaking of which…” He gestured at the room. “How did you alter the Fidelius Charm? I didn't think it was possible, even as a Secret Keeper.”

Harry winced. “I can't talk about that, either.”

“But we can assure you it's not something that could be duplicated,” Hermione jumped in. “You don't need to worry about whatever other Fidelius Charms you have.”

“It has to do with losing the original Secret Keeper?” Remus presumed.

“I truly can't say, Professor,” Hermione said regretfully.

Remus sighed. “This meeting has been far less illuminating than I had hoped, though I suppose that's what I should have expected.”

Harry was clearly frustrated, as well. “Look, what is the Order doing? Maybe we can help you.”

“Originally, we'd wanted to infiltrate the Ministry. But the attack at the wedding revealed too many of us, so we can't pretend to be uninvolved. Arthur had to go into hiding immediately, and he was our best bet for an inside man.” Remus shrugged helplessly. “In a way, it might be better to have been forced underground sooner. It would have happened eventually, and now we can learn how to strike back. We've begun assisting Muggle-borns who have fled the Registry, getting them to safehouses before the Snatchers catch up. We're also preparing to keep an eye on those who have already registered. Our eventual goal is to discover where captured Muggle-borns are being held. Every witch and wizard released from Ministry control is another possible wand for the Order.”

“So recruitment is a priority,” Hermione surmised.

“I'm sure I don't need to tell you how outnumbered we are. There are always more regular wizarding folk than there are Dark, but getting them to fight for us is daunting, to say the least.”

“Bloody cowards,” Ron snorted.

“They're afraid,” Remus reminded. “Afraid for themselves and their families. Not everyone was in Gryffindor, Mr Weasley.”

“I suppose,” Ron mumbled, looking a bit ashamed.

“Correct me if I'm mistaken, Professor, but aren't the Aurors your best source of new members?” Hermione asked.

“For skilled members, yes, and I wish it were that simple,” Remus replied. “Tonks has made some inroads there, and Moody has been using his reputation to attract possibilities, but we have to be so careful that it's a slow process. We want Aurors to join us whilst still working for the Ministry, at least for the time being. Not many are suited for that kind of work, and it's not easy to walk away from a career. We have to be able to guarantee the safety of our members’ families if we really want to bring anyone in.”

“There are no guarantees,” Harry said flatly.

Remus smiled sadly. “No, there aren't. And the worse things get, the more people will understand that. We just have to hope that it won't be too late.”

A heavy silence descended over the table. Ron had taken Hermione's hand and was studying her with concern whilst she stared at nothing, her astounding intellect no doubt examining the Muggle-born situation. Remus wished he had better news to bring her, but the Order was stretched thin and too many Muggle-borns had already disappeared. Thank God that she, at least, was safe with Harry, if only temporarily. Remus was also pleased to see that Ginny was holding Harry's attention, wrapping herself around one of his arms and neatly preventing him from tumbling into another morass of guilt. Harry already had enough terrible responsibilities without taking the blame for things over which he had no control. Remus wasn't blind to Harry's disturbingly advanced martyr complex.

“As we're already on the subject…” Remus began, not wanting to let the silence drag out too long, “I notice you've done a bit of recruitment of your own. When Ms Sophie approached me in the park, for a moment I thought she was an old student! Excellent misdirection, Harry.”

“It was Hermione's idea,” Harry said modestly. “We knew no one would recognise her, even if they were looking for us.”

“She sounded American, at least to my ears. A friend of Lila's?”

“Yeah, basically,” Harry said evasively.

It was obvious that Remus wasn't going to get more information on the Kharans, even indirectly. “Can't blame me for trying, Harry.”

Harry gave him a hesitant smile, relieved Remus was taking his reticence so well. “I don't. Have you spoken to Lila, or was it just Bill? Because she might tell you more.”

“Not bloody likely,” Ron said, giving Harry an incredulous look.

“She will in her own time, if at all. I understand that much about her. If you want to help, however, putting in a good word for me with Scott might do the trick. Granted, I don't know how much influence he has with his older sister,” Remus said.

“At least some,” Harry said, not looking all that certain. “He's technically her… I'll talk to him, I'll do that for you. Maybe I can convince him to tell you things, or to have Lila do it. Even if it's just you and not the Order. I think Scott owes me that much.”

“But does Scott think that?” Ginny said cynically.

Harry scowled. “I don't care what he thinks.”

There was apparently some tension between Scott and Harry. Remus doubted he'd be privileged to the full story, but he hoped it wasn't too serious. The last thing Harry and his friends needed were internal divisions. “I would greatly appreciate it.”

Harry shrugged off the thanks. “It's still less than you deserve.”

“There aren't many getting what they deserve at the moment,” Remus said wryly.

Remus spent the rest of the meeting trying to draw Harry out and get a sense of the lad's mental state; with Sirius gone (and Mrs Weasley out of contact), Remus felt it was his duty to care for Harry in whatever way possible. He had always carried a sense of guilt for not being more of a presence in Harry's life. His lycanthropy had seemed reason enough for years, but his relationship with Nymphadora had left him wondering if that wasn't just an excuse. She certainly thought that he used his werewolf status to protect _himself_ from hurt, more than others. It was a particularly difficult idea to come to grips with. No one wanted to believe that their greatest trauma was also their greatest crutch.

It was apparent, even in cursory conversation, that Harry was not well. Given the pressures he had been subjected to his entire life, it was hard to conceive of how he could be. But Harry was strong, far stronger than anyone his age should have had to become. And his friends were loyal in a way that Remus hadn't often seen. He knew it was a rare group of young men and women who sat at the table with him. He had known that even during his year teaching at Hogwarts.

Soon enough it was becoming late, and Remus knew he should be going. He was reluctant to leave. There was a hurried feeling that came over him, as if he had one chance to say everything he had to say to Harry, and then it would be too late. He supposed it sprang from how difficult it had been to arrange a meeting with Harry in the first place. Now that he remembered Grimmauld, it shouldn't be as much of an issue. Unless…

Before leaving, Remus placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. He remembered a time, not long ago at all, when he would have had to reach down, instead of across, to do the same thing. “I don't know when we'll be able to meet again, but were you planning to exclude me from the Fidelius once more?” He winced internally: he'd sounded more anxious than intended.

“No, of course not,” Harry assured him. “We didn't really mean to the first time, it was just what had to happen.”

Which raised even more questions Remus had no hope of getting answers for. He hated to return to the Order with so little to tell. That was the nature of the business they were all embroiled in, however: too many secrets, and so little trust.

“It was good to see you, Harry,” Remus said, squeezing Harry's shoulder. “Keep in touch.”

***---~**~---***  

Ginny was on a mission. And that word, 'mission', had taken on a great many new and often unpleasant connotations recently, but it still fit.

She needed to talk to someone. That was a requirement easily fulfilled, given the number of people with which she was surrounded every day. However, her needs were a bit more specific than that. She needed another girl to talk to, concerning the kinds of things she wasn't going to be comfortable discussing with a bloke. And that cut three of her companions right out of consideration.

It wasn't because of any one thing in particular. Rather, she had a lot on her mind and the catalyst had been another night spent wrapped around Harry with progressively fewer layers of clothing separating them. Her own self-reflection and awkward exchanges shared with the object of her increasingly uncontrollable affections were not sufficient to sort things out. She needed a second opinion.

Hermione had long been Ginny's confidante, ever since the older girl had stayed at The Burrow for the first time and established a friendship that had lasted and strengthened through years of near-death experiences and clueless boys. Ginny would have gone to Hermione first by default, except that Ron was now Hermione's boyfriend. And Ginny didn't want to hear advice from a girl who would be basing all of that advice on experience gained from snogging Ginny's brother.

However, Lila was unreachable (and the concept of having a personal discussion with the stoic woman was a bit daunting). Sophie seemed nice enough, but Ginny didn't know her very well. Kylie had probably traded a grand total of three or four sentences with Ginny, despite how often they had seen each other at Hogwarts (and Kylie was a bit too young). So Hermione it was.

It was a good time for it: Harry and Ron were caught up in an endless series of practice duels, no doubt another simple demonstration for Sophie that had quickly devolved into a mock battle that they refused to end. Ginny loved duelling and, at the risk of being immodest, she was quite good at it, but Ron and Harry just didn't know when to stop. They would cheerfully fight each other until they were both half-blind and stupid from the Stunners. Perhaps it reminded them of the DA. Or maybe it was more that there just wasn't much else to do.

Whatever the reasons, that left Hermione alone with her research. And, sure enough, Ginny found the older girl upstairs, sitting on a bed so covered with books that they looked like a very uncomfortable blanket.

“Hermione?” Ginny said.

Hermione looked up and blinked hard, squeezing her eyes shut. Perhaps they were dry, which would make sense considering how long she had been staring at the pages. “Yes?” she said a bit vaguely, at least part of her brain still processing the parchment.

“Do you have time to talk?” Ginny asked. And she wasn't _really_ asking, because Hermione was probably rereading books in the hopes of finding something she had missed, and she needed to take a breather.

Hermione blinked again and seemed to come to herself. “Of course,” she said brightly, closing her book. She carefully gathered up the volumes around her and stacked them neatly on the floor, clearing a space for Ginny.

“Thanks,” Ginny said, closing the door and sitting cross-legged across from Hermione.

“What are we talking about?” Hermione said with interest.

“Boys! Our boys, in particular. We could pretend we're back in the dormitories, if you want. Just the kind of talk to have sitting on a bed like this, don't you think? We're really looking the part. Do you want to charm my nails?”

“Clichés are much less fun if you point them out,” Hermione said disapprovingly. “But all right, give them here.” Ginny held out her hand and Hermione took it. “I found a charm for a rainbow assortment I'd like to try…”

Once Ginny's nails were sparkling with five different colours on each hand, Hermione started on her own. “Do you think Harry will like this?” Ginny wondered, examining a particularly bright shade of pink on her ring finger. “I don't care for this one; I'm already pink enough.”

“I don't believe he's ever expressed an opinion on nail colours — at least, not to me,” Hermione said. “You could always ask. He's probably smart enough not to give an honest answer.”

“You'd think, wouldn't you? No, he'll probably be, like, 'I don't care about your nails, Gin, do what you want',” she said in an impression of Harry's cadence. “This looks good, it would fit right in with what I wore to Godric's Hollow. I should dress like that more, Harry couldn't stop looking. You think Sophie would give the clothes to me?”

“I'd imagine so. But you can get the same reaction from Harry wearing anything that's a bit tight.”

“I think he's into breasts, my Harry. You should have seen him when we caught up at Lila's flat, I was wearing that yellow top with the straps, you know, the one that shows my belly? I thought he'd love that, and I think he sort of did, but he was just staring at my tits the whole time. He even forgot to try and look like he wasn't.”

“He likes your legs too, you know. He's always looking at your calves when you wear those striped knee-highs with your skirts,” Hermione added.

Ginny dropped her hands in disgust. “I'm too short, I don't have legs.”

“Oh? What were you standing on a moment ago?”

“You know what I mean! I've got these thick thighs and Quidditch calves for my hips to sit on, and then there's nothing going on up. Whoever said 'sporty' was good for a girl? I'm shaped like a bloody broomstick.”

“You're entirely feminine and it's not just my opinion — ask Harry sometime what he thinks of your shape, I think you'll find it quite flattering. If there was 'nothing going on up', do you think he'd have been quite so distracted by your shirts?”

“I'd kill for your tits, honestly. They're just going to waste anyway, what with my brother staring at your bum. Hey, I should use an Engorgement Charm and see how long it takes Harry to notice!”

“About two seconds, I should think. And that's a terrible idea, Ginny. Do you want to look like you've had Lila's grafted on to you?” Hermione pursed her mouth in suppressed amusement. “You'd probably tip right over!”

The mental image that conjured was hilarious. “I'd look like I shoved a couple Quaffles down my shirt!” Ginny laughed.

“Harry wouldn't care for that, anyway. Cho wasn't exactly top heavy herself, so he's fairly consistent. It's your particular style of pulchritude that attracted him in the first place.”

“My what?”

“Your beauty,” Hermione clarified.

“Why didn't you just say that?” Ginny said derisively. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“I'm not trying to impress anybody! _Some_ of us have vocabularies beyond Quidditch and vulgarity!”

“Who's fucking vulgar?!”

Hermione flinched. “You…! I've already had to tolerate enough of that from the boys! Ron never could watch his mouth, but Harry's language has taken a poor turn since Scott came around. Usually just when he's angry, at least, but he's angry so often…”

“I think he's dead sexy when he gets riled,” Ginny confided.

“Even when you're shouting back at him?”

“Not when he's angry at _me_ ,” Ginny clarified. “We're not like you and Ron, we're not sick. We don't fight so we can snog after.”

“I am not _sick!”_

“Yeah, you are. You're snogging Ron, there's something wrong with you. You'd have to be mental to bring your lips anywhere near him.”

Hermione glowered. “You're exceptionally biased, I can't ever count on you to be objective. Your opinion in this matter is invalid.”

“Whatever, I had a question. Well, more than one but it's a start.” Ginny hesitated for a moment, and then decided to get right into it. “What's the farthest you've ever gone with a bloke?”

Hermione froze, her mouth slightly parted. “…I hadn't expected _that_ question, I must admit.”

“I said I wanted to talk!”

“Yes, but I didn't know you meant _that_ talk,” Hermione explained.

“Why not? Who else am I supposed go to for a chin wag? 'Oh, hello, Harry, I've just had my monthly; want to talk about it?'” Ginny said.

“I'd suggest approaching Sophie, first,” Hermione suggested wryly.

“She seems an all right sort, but it's not like I know her. And I wanted to talk to _you.”_

Hermione frowned slightly. “All of this research I have, I didn't consider… I've been letting you down as a friend, haven't I?”

Ginny shook her head, her red tresses scattering over her face. “No, you've been busy. We all have.”

“I shouldn't be too busy for you,” Hermione said with self-reproach. “Now… You are aware, of course, that the farthest I've ever been with any bloke would be the farthest I've ever been with the only bloke I've ever had, and that would be your brother.”

Ginny grimaced. “I know.”

“I'm just making sure you understand. I do want to talk and be here for you, but I can only tolerate so many expressions of disgust!”

“I'll try to keep them to a minimum,” Ginny promised.

“Very thoughtful of you,” Hermione said dryly. “Now, with Ron, I…” Her cheeks flushed and she leaned forward conspiratorially. “Most of the time we aren't touching when I wake up, but once he had his hand on my breast.”

Ginny scrunched up her nose. “You let my brother touch your tits? Do you know where he's been?”

“It was over the bra, as if I need to justify it! And I knew you wouldn't want to hear this, I don't know why you came to me,” Hermione said with a huff.

“All right, sorry, but, he was probably sleeping when he did that. I meant on purpose, like… _Together_ , you know?” Ginny stressed.

“Well, just some more touching under the shirt, and, as you said, he does like my bum, he's always cupping that when he gets the chance… He started lifting me that way when we snog, once he found out I didn't mind. I enjoy it, actually. I think he's still a bit uncertain about touching my breasts; he usually asks, first. That must seem more 'forbidden', I suppose.”

“Ugh.”

“Ginny!”

“What, I can't help it!”

“Try a bit harder to suppress it! Now do you want to talk about this or not? How can we have a sex talk if you keep making those faces?” Hermione complained.

“Sex?!” Ginny yelped. “Oh my God! You've been _shagging?_ I can't believe you! …How was it? Did it hurt?”

Hermione had turned scarlet. “No! I meant sex talk as in sexuality, gender relations, not shagging specifically and the closest we've even come to that was…”

Ginny leaned forward eagerly. “What?”

Hermione glanced away.

“What? You can't just leave it at that!” Ginny demanded.

“Sometimes, when we're snogging,” Hermione said slowly, “I've put my legs around his waist and sort of… _Rubbed_ against him.”

Ginny clamped her mouth shut whilst she overcame the urge to say something rude. The key to approaching such topics with Hermione was to wait out the initial revulsion, allowing Ron to become more of a faceless male ideal. Once she arrived at that point, the thought of grinding against Harry in such a fashion was a wonderful one. Some of the positions they slept in — Ginny wrapped around his side with his thigh between hers — had created a friction that brought with it an animal instinct for even more.

“Was that good?” she asked. “Did you come?”

“No!” Hermione denied a bit too quickly. “…But it felt like I could have.”

“I've thought about that, sometimes. I mean, we're already snogging and he's right there, why shouldn't I just get up on him? I wonder if he would try that with me,” Ginny mused.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He'd do anything with you.”

“But that's not true,” Ginny said worriedly. “I know that the way you are with Ron is different. You're the one holding him back, you know, setting limits. Us Weasleys are a randy lot, and that's the truth. But with Harry I have to push for everything, always, right from the beginning. I barely got him to stay with me at the start of all this!”

Hermione placed a sympathetic hand on Ginny's knee. “I know it hasn't been easy for the two of you. Harry has… That is, considering his upbringing and everything that's happened… Ginny, all of your affections, in whatever form, are, I'm quite certain, the most he's ever been touched in his life. And I think he's still not entirely used to it,” Hermione said insightfully. “I'm afraid it may be a long time before you don't have to push him a bit. But isn't he worth fighting for?”

“Always,” Ginny said fiercely.

“I knew you felt that way. And I'm sure he does, too.”

Ginny picked at the sheets with her fingernails. “Maybe. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks I'm all over him because I just want him to _pleasure_ me.”

Hermione's eyes danced. “Don't you?”

“Yes!” Ginny said, giggling. “But that's not _all_ I want!”

“Perhaps you should make that clearer? _I'm_ well aware you love him in more ways than one, but he doesn't have quite the same perspective that I do. You never showed him all the times you practised writing 'Ginny Potter' in your diary!”

“I didn't _show_ that to you, you twit!” Ginny screeched in outrage. “You peeked when I dropped it that one time!”

“It fell open to that page; I can hardly be held responsible for that,” Hermione said in an overly-reasonable tone.

“You bet your arse you can!”

“I can't bet my arse,” Hermione countered. “Ron's recently claimed it.”

“Oh, _God_ ,” Ginny groaned, looking away.

“…It's an interesting thought, however,” Hermione said after she gained control of her giggles.

“What, Ron squeezing your arse? That's a _nauseating_ thought, and you should be ashamed.”

“I'm not, though,” Hermione said, lifting her chin despite the blush suffusing her face. “Do you think they'd be shocked at Hogwarts, if they knew?”

“What, that Hermione Granger is a secret slag for my brother?”

“I am not!”

“The only person shocked would be _you_ ,” Ginny said, ignoring Hermione's protest. “Half our house already thinks you've been shagging after every argument since third year.”

“No!”

“Yeah! If I told them you were snogging all over this place, they'd just be wondering what the real news was! The only people that ever thought you were subtle were you and Ron. Even Harry twigged on around the Yule Ball, and he's almost as thick as Ron is. Did you really think no one noticed?”

“It's just a bit disillusioning,” Hermione sighed. “Regardless, I did have an interesting thought: what if you showed Harry your old diary? You know, the pink one with all the tassels?”

Ginny blanched. “Show Harry my old diary?”

“Right. The regular one that wasn't stabbed with a basilisk fang, obviously.” A hand flew up to Hermione's mouth. “Oh, dear. That wasn't very sensitive, was it?”

Ginny barely noticed. “Show Harry where I wrote 'Ginny Potter'.”

“Yes.”

“Where I wrote about how green his eyes are.”

“Yes.”

“Where I made up little stories in which he rescues me from various dragons and Dark wizards.”

“Yes, that's right.”

Ginny stared at her. “Are you barking?”

Hermione held up her palms, as if to forestall Ginny's wrath. “Hear me out.”

“Why? You've just started and it's already the worst idea I've ever heard!”

Hermione looked sceptical. “Oh, that can't be true. Surely Fred and George have come to you with worse ideas.”

“Nope. This beats them all.”

“Ginny! I'm only suggesting it because I think it might help Harry understand you better!”

“How? How could that possibly help?” Ginny said wildly. “I'm not that silly little girl anymore, I've tried so hard not to be!”

“But you _were_ once. You were. And, despite your protestations, part of you will always see Harry that way, just like a part of me will always see Ron as that cute boy on the train with dirt on his nose,” Hermione said with a strident note in her voice that made clear it was something she was convinced of. “Show Harry how long you've been in love with him, or at least the idea of him, and he'll see just how important he is to you. How important he was even before he let you be important to him!”

But Ginny wanted Harry to see her as the woman who was fighting by his side, not the girl who only dreamed of him. She had tried to reconcile the two with her confessions after the locket's destruction, and Harry had responded with loads of guilt for his unintentional dismissal of her feelings. “I told Harry some of it, and all he did was beat himself up for not noticing me sooner!”

“Oh. Of course he would,” Hermione said blankly. “I didn't think of that.”

“Obviously.”

“But it doesn't matter,” Hermione said, recovering her confidence. “Guilt is Harry's response to many things. You just have to work around it.”

“It must be nice to have an easy boyfriend,” Ginny snarked.

“You know better than that,” Hermione reprimanded. “Harry may have guilt, but Ron has insecurity. Don't you remember what happened between the two of them during the Tri-wizard Tournament? Always worrying that he's not good enough for me, always feeling overshadowed by his brothers… It's maddening sometimes. So don't tell me I can't comprehend what that's like!”

“Come off it! Ron isn't even half as damaged as Harry,” Ginny insisted.

Hermione's lips twitched, and then she snorted in laughter. “I can't believe you said that like it's a point of pride. Are we really arguing about whose boyfriend is more unstable?”

“I guess we are,” Ginny said, giving in to her own laughter.

“Oh, we are so far off topic!” Hermione declared, and of course only she would ever worry about relevancy during such an informal conversation. “You asked me about how far I've 'gone', so to speak, but why did you want to know? Or was it purely for gossip purposes?”

“No…” Ginny sighed. “I guess I was looking for comparison.”

“How so?”

“It's just, we're sleeping in the same bed and it's not easy to ignore how it just drives me mad sometimes, how I get so…”

“…Aroused?” Hermione diffidently suggested.

“Yeah. And I know he is, too. Half the time I wake up and he's all pressed against me there, I can feel him.”

“Oh. Oh!” Hermione blushed. “His…”

“His cock,” Ginny clarified, purposefully choosing a more uncouth term and enjoying the uncomfortable expression that flitted across Hermione's features. Served her right for being so detailed about Ron.

“I see. Um… Well, that's a very natural, physical reaction to that kind of proximity,” Hermione said.

Ginny preferred to think of it as a very natural reaction Harry had to _her_. “So I wanted to know if you'd done anything with a boy's bits, although since it's you and Ron please don't go into it much. Please.”

“No. Not, directly. Just… the rubbing, like I said.”

“Right. Well, I thought since it happens with Harry so much that maybe I could give him a hand…?” Ginny made a fist and moved it in the universal gesture for male masturbation.

Hermione's eyes widened. “Whilst he's sleeping? I really think you ought to ask first, Ginny.”

“Of course not when he's sleeping, I'm not just going to grab him!”

“I'm not sure he'd mind, entirely, but it's always better to ask…”

“But do you think I should? It's one thing to talk about it, I mean, Harry likes to flirt. I just don't know how far he wants to go. Which is so weird to say, since blokes are supposed to want everything right away, but…”

“It's a bit of a stereotype, isn't it?” Hermione agreed. “Our particular blokes are maybe more self-conscious than most, but it's a good reminder that we shouldn't assume so much and settle into simple societal labels.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to turn this into some sort of lesson. Our blokes are just prats who don't know what they want.”

“I think Harry is probably just wondering what _you_ want from him.”

What Ginny wanted from Harry was _more_. That was often ill-defined, though her talk with Hermione had made some things clearer. Ginny didn't want actual shagging, not yet. She needed to work her way up to that, she couldn't just skip ahead right to the finish. But she wanted to see what Harry looked like beneath his trousers, and she wanted to touch him (and, if she was feeling especially curious, to take him into her mouth — just to try it). And on his end of things, she wanted _his_ mouth on her, all over her, without embarrassment, and she didn't want to have to give him written instructions to achieve that.

“What if I just rolled over, and put my tit in his mouth…” Ginny mused. “He'd have to know what to do then, right?”

Hermione made a strangled sound that was part laughter, part shock. “By instinct, if nothing else,” she managed.

They talked for a bit more, and by the time they finished Ginny was feeling more confident in what she intended. There was no need to rush headlong into shagging, but she was tired of getting herself off in the shower. And if she was tired of it, she imagined that Harry probably was, too. So the next logical step in their relationship would be mutually beneficial.

She didn't see much point in discussing it with him beforehand. Harry thought best on his feet, anyway: he'd be better off without time to worry about it.

***---~**~---*** 

“School starts in less than a week,” Ron observed.

That brought about a severe moment of dissonance for Harry as he sat on the floor of the dining hall, still breathing hard from his last practice duel. He suddenly felt as if he were late, severely late — he hadn't bought his books yet or anything, didn't even have a list! He should be at The Burrow getting ready for a trip to Diagon Alley, not sitting about Grimmauld Place. What was he doing? He didn't have any new quills and if he 'borrowed' all of Hermione's, she was going to kill him!

But he wasn't going to school at all, he had to remember; instead of worrying about NEWTs, he was trying not to die, and instead of a quill, he had a ballpoint pen, and his wand was supplemented by a shotgun. It wasn't quite the start to a new year that he was used to.

“Won't be riding the Express this year, eh, Harry?” Ron said quietly.

“Not the Anglia, either,” Harry said wistfully.

Ron snorted. “Damn thing's probably still out in the Forest with the spiders. Bloody spiders.”

“Too bad, that. We could use a flying car.”

“Think we could charm ours?” Ron said thoughtfully.

Harry shrugged. “Maybe? Didn't your dad spend loads of time on that, though?”

“I don't really remember. Wouldn't do us much good unless we could get our hands on an Invisibility Booster — though I guess they can't expel us for being seen, so that's a plus…”

“Yeah. I had this dream once,” Harry began, closing his eyes and remembering, “where we crashed in a city instead of hitting the Willow. And it ended up being on television and they knew magic was real, and they found out all about witches and wizards and Tom Riddle. And then the Muggles killed him, so I didn't have to.”

Ron was silent for a moment. “…I think we'd just have different problems after that, mate.”

“I know. It was just a dream.”

“'Sides, even if You-Know-Who snuffed it from Muggles or whatever, wouldn't he come back again?”

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “He will unless we can finish these Horcruxes. Any ideas? Because I am ready to be shut of this shite.”

Ron made a face. “I think we'll have to go north, like Scott said. Maybe something'll turn up.”

Harry shook his head, frustrated with the thought. “I don't get how that's going to work, we could wander around forever with a hint like that, if you can even call it a hint.”

“Didn't Scott say he'd know more when he got closer?”

“I don't know. He says a lot of things,” Harry said tiredly. He took off his glasses and gazed blearily around the room.

Looking down at the spectacles, he thought he might ask Sophie if she could get him some Muggle-style contact lenses. His vision was terrible without his glasses, and he worried that he might lose or damage them during combat. It wasn't something he'd given much thought before, but when Ginny had deflected the spell into the cobblestones at the square in Godric's Hollow the resultant dust had coated his lenses. He'd cleaned them with a quick _Scourgify_ , but he couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if they'd been struck by a stray bit of rock.

He held the glasses up towards Ron. “It's funny how no one's ever _Accio'd_ these things right off my face,” he said.

Ron's eyes widened. “Blimey, I never thought of that! You're right fucked now you've said that.”

“Not for long, tosser. I'll bet Sophie can find me some contact lenses; try to Summon those and I'll just close my eyes for a second.”

“That a Muggle thing?”

“Yeah, they're pieces of plastic, or something, that work like glasses but they fit right over your eye.”

Ron squinted as he tried to imagine such a thing. “Wait, _over_ your eyes, or, like, _in_ them?”

“In them, I think. I saw this kid messing with his once in the loo, back in primary school.”

“Doesn't that hurt?” Ron said disbelievingly.

“I hope not,” Harry said, not enthused at the prospect of sticking anything into his eyeball. “But even if it does, I need to do it.”

“All right, mate,” Ron said supportively. “You'll look right strange without your glasses, though.”

“I'll probably only use the contacts for missions.” Harry grinned when he had another thought. “You know they've got coloured ones, too, to change how your eyes look. Like a glamour charm.”

“You know Ginny would kill you, right?”

Harry was a bit taken aback by Ron's warning. “Really?”

“What are you, daft? She's barmy about your eyes. She'll be out for blood if you make them anything less than green as a fresh-pickled toad,” Ron said with a smirk.

Harry didn't have any strong feelings about his eyes one way or the other (though in his early years as a wizard he had tired of repeatedly hearing how they looked like his mother's). But he supposed he could understand Ginny's attachment to them, at least somewhat. He felt the same way about her hair.

“I hadn't planned on it. I was just thinking of disguises,” Harry explained.

“Not much call for that whilst we're stuck in here, huh,” Ron commented.

That brought things right back around to the real problem: they were hiding, and not much else. Harry knew that what he and his friends were doing was the most important piece of the war against Riddle, more vital than even what the Order was attempting. For that reason, Harry had cut himself off from everyone who didn't know about the Horcruxes (and as much as he hated the idea of the wizarding world thinking he had abandoned them, there didn't seem to be any way around it). But now, Harry was barely doing anything at all. He almost wanted to owl Remus and just leave with him, joining the Order. It was better than sitting and hoping that Hermione would find something in her books.

True, the time was well spent in research and training. But, outside, things were getting worse. Harry wanted to save the wizarding world before there wasn't still a wizarding world in Britain left to save.

For the first time, he wished his mental connection with Riddle would flare up again. Harry had assumed for some time that Riddle had gained firm control of his Occlumency and was actively blocking Harry from entering his mind. It made sense. The Department of Mysteries had been a costly trap for Harry, but it hadn't exactly gone according to plan for Riddle, either. The Dark Lord cloaked himself in shadows and thrived on secrets; having Harry in his head was just too great of a liability.

So although Harry was grateful to no longer be forced to delve into Voldemort's horrid psyche, he couldn't dismiss how occasionally useful it had been. It had saved Arthur Weasley's life, after all.

It was odd, though, how utterly quiet the connection had been. Riddle had a history of being unable to control his broadcasting during moments of extreme emotion. He could probably prevent most visions from going Harry's way, but it was surprising that nothing had slipped out at all, especially considering how happy Riddle had to have been after the Ministry's fall. Harry had seen nothing, experienced not even a twinge from his scar. The curse-created link between the two foes had been dormant for over a year. In fact, he hadn't been given so much as a glimpse through Voldemort's eyes since… Since…

…Since a blond-haired boy had walked into a playground.

His heart began to accelerate as a cold weight settled over him. He must have been jumping to conclusions. Scott wouldn't have blocked the connection without discussing it with Harry first, surely he… He couldn't have. Such a massive lie of omission would have threatened Scott's integration, his _friendship_ , with Harry, it… There were too many opportunities inherent in the connection, Scott would have seen that. He would have wanted to know more, he might have even encouraged the link. Information was ammunition.

Harry's rationalisations were unconvincing: the worst answer was the one that fit too well. He felt the rage coming on, bubbling up from deep within him. He fought it, trying to be reasoning, searching every crevice of his memory for some hint that Scott hadn't known anything about the link and it was all simply a coincidence.

There was nothing. A few of the usual comments from Hermione, asking if Harry's scar was hurting. Concerned glances from Ron and Ginny if Harry rubbed at it out of habit. Scott had been there for at least some of those moments. Had he said anything? Had he ever asked? Or had he already known that Harry's scar was fine, because he had ensured it?

Harry couldn't remember.

“Er… All right, there, mate?” Ron asked hesitantly. He had been sitting and watching with obvious confusion as Harry's mood took a turn for the furious.

Harry stood. “Sophie's downstairs, isn't she?” he said in the most level tone he could.

“Last I saw her…”

Harry went for the kitchen, barely noticing as Ron jumped to his feet and hurried to follow. Scott was still asleep as far as Harry knew, which was good; when Harry confronted him, he wanted the Kharadjai to be off balance, and waking him up suddenly might do the trick. First, he wanted a second opinion, and since it was possible that Sophie didn't know much of what had happened at Hogwarts, he might be able to shake something out of her. Unless she had been told to lie, and was just another manipulative, conniving Kharadjai. Either way, Harry was going to give her the chance to look him in the eye and come clean.

Sophie was using cleaning spells on a stack of dirty dishes when Harry stormed into the room. She must have been experimenting with _Scourgify_ , because she was holding a plate that was perfectly cleaned on one half and still soiled on the other. She turned when she heard Harry enter.

“Harry!” she said pleasantly, setting the plate down. “Are you hungry? I still have some— what is it, what's wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” Harry said a bit more calmly than he'd intended. Sophie was so small and feminine that it was difficult to be angry with her. Harry, in his newly refreshed paranoia, wondered if that was why she had been chosen.

Sophie's already large eyes widened slightly. “What about?” she said with an inquisitiveness that appeared to be innocent, but Harry wasn't sure he bought it.

“This.” Harry pointed a stiff finger at his scar. “How long has Scott been blocking Riddle out?”

Sophie didn't react the way Harry had been half-expecting her to: she maintained the same simple curiosity. “Blocking what how?”

“Riddle. Tom Riddle, you know who he is?” Harry said sharply.

“Oh, yes. I thought you said riddle like, 'puzzle'. What did Scott do to him?”

“I'm asking _you_ ,” Harry said, his voice rising. “I'm not going to explain shite you already know, so just answer my question!”

Sophie took a step back and clasped her hands in a defensive posture, catching on that she was being accused. “I don't know what you're talking about, Harry, and I don't care for your tone,” she said, lifting her chin.

Harry was losing his momentum, beginning to feel like he had made a mistake. Sophie wasn't cagey like Scott and Lila, and if it was a performance then it was a very convincing one. He decided to be forthright and see what that gained him. “My scar here — it's a curse scar made when Riddle tried to kill me. It connects my mind through his sometimes when he's feeling a strong emotion, and once he used it to trick me. That hasn't happened, at all, since Scott arrived. So has he been messing with my head or what?”

Surprise was writ large across Sophie's open features, though shortly after she did her best to school them. Her stance became uneasy and she shifted her weight slightly. “No, no… The shape doesn't work that way, we can't read people's minds or alter them.”

Harry was inclined to believe that was true, but it wasn't an answer to his question. “Has Scott been blocking Riddle without telling me?” he asked coldly.

“I don't see why he would…”

_“Has he or not?”_

Sophie flinched, though she remained infuriatingly hesitant. Harry was beginning to think that she didn't know anything about the mental link, but it definitely seemed like she was doing her best to cover Scott's arse. “Are you sure about this?”

Harry blew out a breath. He hadn't come down to the kitchen to waste his rage on Sophie. “No, I'm not, and that's why I'm asking. Please.”

The 'please' seemed to accomplish what his confrontational attitude had not. “I don't know. I'm sorry, I really don't. This is the first I've heard of anything like that being possible.”

“All right,” Harry said, bracing himself. Getting a straight answer out of Sophie was child's play compared to the sleeping man upstairs.

“You'll have to talk to Scott about your concerns. I'm sure he would have apprised you if he had to 'block' anything important—” she faltered a bit when Harry scoffed, “but you should take this to him.”

Harry planned on it. He turned on his heel and went back up the stairs.

“You'll have to wait until he wakes up!” Sophie called after him. Harry ignored her, but she hurried after him and caught him by the elf heads. “I mean it! He's still resting!”

“I don't care!” Harry shot back.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You can talk to him as soon as he wakes up, but not before. He needs to sleep.”

Harry tried to stare her down, to no avail. It was obvious she wasn't going to budge when it came to Scott's well-being. “Fine,” he said grudgingly. “As soon as he wakes.”


	18. Apology Not Fucking Accepted

**18**

**Apology Not Fucking Accepted**

\---

 _“Two threads are side by side; sharing  
an anchor, they are analogous. Observation  
will be required determine if they are  
Component, Solidary or Symbiotic.  
Difficulties may be encountered in  
the absence of frequent traffic or  
proximity. Lacking constant broadcast,  
there is no immediate delineation  
without simultaneous traffic.”_

                        —Thomas Spencer, _Collected Articles (Fourth Edition)_  

\--- 

Harry woke up at an indeterminate time after midnight. It was too dark to see his watch, and he knew he had left the door open a bit when he'd come back from the loo. That left him rolling out of bed sometime before sunrise.

He was thirsty, mostly. He yawned as he descended the steps with his lit wand held out before him. The pale light cast leaping shadows from the banister, flitting across the walls, and he was struck by the sudden memory of headlights projecting the same dark, scrolling shapes from his window at the Dursleys', when it had been barred. Thanks to Sophie's cleaning efforts, the sight was a bit less threatening than it would have been in the past. The décor remained oppressive, but at least it didn't look abandoned.

Near the bottom of the steps he could see the warm glow of lamplight shining from the kitchen. He extinguished his wand and descended into the light, wondering who else was up and about.

Scott was rummaging through the cupboards, digging about the food and making quite a racket with the bags of crisps he was pulling out. He was barefoot and dressed in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt that looked as if it might have been white at some point and had since turned grey. Despite such a state of undress, his M14 rifle was slung across his back.

He quickly looked around when Harry entered the room, only to turn away, incurious, when he saw who it was. “Hey, have you seen my nacho chips?” he asked with his head back in the cupboard.

Harry had not expected to find Scott. The sight of him sent Harry's anger leaping in his chest, tensing his muscles and curling his fingers. He tried to tamp it down. “What are you doing?”

“I'm starving, man. Got the munchies, need some calories to burn.”

“I think Ginny ate your crisps,” Harry said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“Aww, what?” Scott dropped his forehead against the cupboard bottom with a thump. “Why would she do that? No, wait. It's because nacho chips are awesome.”

Harry watched in silence as Scott continued to rummage through the cupboard, perhaps clinging to the vain hope that Ginny hadn't eaten the crisps. Harry needed to confront Scott, and he almost didn't know where to start. The Kharadjai had been out of action for long enough that the grievances had seemed to compile, long enough that Harry had discovered an entirely new one that almost overrode the others. If it was the truth. Some part of him wanted to give Scott the benefit of the doubt, but it was difficult to do so when Scott's history of omission, even more than the evidence, was so damning.

They had, after all, just survived a mission in which Scott had directly lied to all of his Primes. Not the best way to maintain trust. Harry was still deeply unhappy at being cut out of the battle, though at least he could understand Scott's reasoning, even if he didn't agree with it. But the mental link with Voldemort? If Scott had truly been blocking it, without ever saying a word, then Harry just couldn't abide that. God only knew what vital information might have been lost through such an action.

“Sit down,” Harry said, his acidic anger coursing with his thoughts.

Scott withdrew his head from the cupboard. “What?”

“Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

Scott's lips twitched as if he were going to smile; when his gaze met Harry's, his mouth flattened and his eyes narrowed. “About what?”

“What do you think? Take a wild guess,” Harry said harshly.

Scott dropped the tin he was holding and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Are you still mad about the radio thing?”

As a matter of fact, Harry was, but that wasn't the present issue. He pointed at his scar. “About this.”

Scott's other eyebrow shot up. “Okay. Not something we've really talked about before, but…”

“How long have you been blocking Vol—”

“Harry.”

“—Riddle from my mind?” Harry said angrily.

“How long have I _what?”_

“Been blocking Riddle! Through the scar!” Harry shouted, enraged by Scott's dedication to playing dumb. “Do you have any idea what you've done, do you have any idea at all? We might have found them all by now, we might have saved more—”

“Harry, if you don't start making sense—”

“You'll what? _What?”_ Harry snarled. “Lie to me some more? Cut me out of the fight? Muck about with my head?”

“Sure, I'll start with this fork! C'mere, maybe a fork lobotomy will calm your ass down—”

_“Just tell me!”_

“Tell. You. WHAT?”

 _“ **THE TRUTH!** ”_ Harry bellowed.

“Time OUT!” Scott yelled, making a gesture that formed a 'T'. “I feel like we've done this before. Let's try something different: fuckin' tell me what you want.”

It took every ounce of willpower Harry had, but he reigned in his fury. “This. This is my curse scar, I got it from the Killing Curse,” he said through gritted teeth as he pointed again at his scar.

Scott crossed his arms and nodded. “I know.”

“It gives me a mental connection with Riddle, and I can see through his eyes when he feels something strongly, which is how I saw Mr Weasley get bitten and was tricked into going to the Department.” Harry's voice was already rising again.

“I _know.”_

“Then do you also _know_ why it so happens that I haven't had a single vision since you decided to take over my life?” Harry seethed.

Scott just stared at him. “What are you suggesting?”

Harry looked him right in the eye, searching Scott's face for even the smallest sign of falsehood. “Have you been blocking Riddle from my mind?”

Scott's face contorted in scornful disbelief. “No, I haven't. I don't even know what that would look like, a thread like that would have been…” He froze.

Watching the realisation come into Scott's eyes was all the confirmation Harry needed. “You absolute sodding cunt,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “Have you ever been my friend at all? Why couldn't you just fucking _stay_ gone! Or better yet, actually done your fucking _job_ , because we'd all rather have Dumbledore, anyway!”

“Go fuck yourself, I don't need this.”

“You don't even get it, do you? You think you're right, you _always_ think you're right, you're NEVER wrong! We might have had the Horcruxes already, we could be _done_ , but no — you had to go fucking with everything, always, thinking you know what you're doing when you know nothing at ALL. How much time did we waste because of you? _How many people are **DEAD** now because **I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HAPPENING?** ”_

“How many of us are alive now because you didn't run head-first into a trap? Or did you have another godfather to spare?” Scott said in a tone like ice.

If Harry could have found the presence of mind, he'd have throttled the life out of Scott right then and there. He had to leave; he couldn't look at Scott for a second longer. He turned and staggered up the stairs, brushing through the stunned cluster of his friends that he hadn't even noticed gathering behind him.

“Harry, I'm sorry,” Scott called after him.

Harry didn't even spare him a glance.

***—-~**~—-*** 

When Harry fled back upstairs, Ron and Ginny followed him. Hermione stayed where she was, meeting Sophie's eyes. They reached a silent agreement; Sophie put her arms around Kylie's shoulders and led the girl back to her room.

In the past, Hermione would have been the first to follow Harry and attempt to comfort him. But she had been supplanted in that role by Ginny, which hadn't always been easy to accept. Hermione missed the way she used to relate to Harry and Ron. Growing up meant finding significant others, and a gradual changing of their group dynamic that she sometimes resented.

But that was just life, wasn't it? And now she had stayed behind to confront Scott Kharan, the biggest change of all. She went down into the kitchen with a burning desire to find out why on earth she had been awoken by a shouting match.

Scott watched her approach with a look of resignation. “Go ahead,” he said dully.

“Go ahead and what?” she questioned, halting in front of him.

“Slap me. Or punch me, you know how to do that, now. You heard what I said.”

“I did. I also heard what Harry said,” Hermione said shortly. “I missed the beginning of the argument, so I'm not sure at what point you both agreed to say the most horrible things you could think of.”

“It came about very naturally.”

“Oh, did it? Good, that's ever so reassuring, I should hate to think you forced that kind of behaviour,” she said blisteringly.

Scott sighed. “What do you want? He came in here and just fucking lost it, was I supposed to stand there and take it?”

“Couldn't you? You're purportedly such a professional, you could have said nothing.”

“I can't,” Scott said, scrubbing at his face with his palms. “We're not even supposed to do that, you know.”

Hermione felt the pang of excitement that always ran through her when Scott was on the cusp of actually revealing something. “I don't.”

“It has to do with how we relate to Primes. You guys are my friends, for real. Faking that would just be hobbling myself. And when someone, a friend, comes at you like Harry just did, the worst thing you can do is not react. It's like… If you don't engage them at all, if you act like you don't even care enough to get angry back… That's just worse.” He dropped his hands. “Look, I _could_ suppress all my emotions, I _could_ act like I'm in combat twenty-four-seven, but the point of all this is, I'm an integrationist. I integrate with you, I become your friend, you see me as I am. I don't _have_ to be emotionless.”

Hermione was about to protest and point out his long history of omission and obfuscation. Then it occurred to her that, although Scott often hid the facts, he didn't hide his personality. She didn't know much about the Kharadjai, or his mission, or even some of the things he had done for Harry's sake, but she did know a great deal about Scott as a person. He was sparing with his secrets, but he wasn't playing a character. He was Scott — humorous, dangerous, difficult Scott.

“Why not put on an act?” she said. “Why not give your integration a boost by telling us exactly what we want to hear, or being extra accommodating and friendly? Not that I want that from you, mind,” she added quickly.

“Because you can lie to a person, but you can't lie to the shape. Building real threads means making real relations. Our thread,” he motioned between the two of them, “is as much a reflection of how I feel about you as it is how you feel about me.”

She felt herself soften towards him, despite what he had said to Harry. “That's… touching, actually, in a very strange way.”

“It was always my intention to touch you.”

His innuendo was too unenthusiastic to be offensive. “You'll have to try much harder than that to distract me. Now what brought all this about?”

“An oversight.”

“All right. Yours, I presume?”

“Yes.”

She gave him a few seconds to go on. When he continued to look blankly back at her, her mouth thinned. “Scott, you can tell me what you did, or I can go ask Harry and get his point of view.”

“You're all going to be on his side anyway.”

“And whose fault is that?” Hermione said sharply. “I am trying to be impartial and you are not, in any way, making it easy!”

Scott crossed his arms and leaned back against the kitchen stove. Hermione didn't know if he was formulating an answer or debating whether to answer at all. She scraped together some modicum of patience, and waited.

“It was about his scar,” Scott said. “He came in, probably already pissed off about the Hollow, and asked me how long I'd been blocking Riddle's connection.”

Hermione gasped. “His Legilimency?”

“Or something. I'm not clear on the details.”

Harry's curse scar — his involuntary connection to Voldemort's mind. Harry's lack of Occlumency skill had been a serious point of contention between him and Hermione in the past, and it was only in the last year or so when Voldemort's mental invasions had ceased that she had largely let the subject go. Several times in the sixth year she had asked Harry if his scar were hurting, or if he'd been having visions, if he looked especially tired in the morning. He'd always replied to the negative, and though she had suspected he might not have been entirely truthful, that was only in regards to the pain. He disliked any focus on his physical weaknesses. If he'd had any actual visions, he would surely have reacted to the information. Hermione would have been told.

She'd given it a bit of thought, and assumed that Voldemort had taken care to block Harry more thoroughly than before. It made sense: the battle at the Department of Mysteries had been devastating for Harry, but it had also been a huge defeat for Voldemort. The Dark Lord must have decided that the curse link was simply too dangerous to allow, despite its possible uses.

Scott was suggesting an alternative scenario, one involving a breach of trust that Harry would take very, very badly.

Hermione needed a moment to sort out her thoughts. If Scott had actually prevented Voldemort from broadcasting to Harry's mind then that was good, and she approved. She knew that Harry, in an almost disturbing way, _liked_ the link as much as he feared it; it offered tantalising glimpses into the operations of the enemy, a first-hand window into Voldemort's plans. But Hermione had never believed that was worth the risk to Harry's mind. Had he learned nothing from his possession? Scott had done him a favour, removing such a vulnerability.

Unfortunately, it sounded as if Scott had gifted that favour in the worst possible manner. Tampering with Harry's mind and saying nothing would be a horrible lie of omission.

Hermione worried at her lower lip, not sure how to process the situation. “…I don't know how what you've done can be so good and so awful at the same time.”

“If it helps you split the difference, it was completely unintentional.”

That put things in a different light. “How can that be?”

Scott sighed and lifted his hands. “I need time. I'm trying to remember things, and I don't know exactly how this happened. I have one incident in mind, but that's not enough to account for… It should have come back, especially with effort on the other end, which means it was more than… once, or…” He stared at an undefined spot somewhere to Hermione's left, eyes narrowed in deep thought.

“Can you tell me anything? Explain how you didn't mean to do it, and I'll try to talk to Harry,” Hermione offered.

Scott shook his head. “I have, like, the smallest piece of the puzzle right now. It doesn't make sense.”

“Try,” she persisted.

Scott huffed out a quick breath and bounced on his heels. “I think it started with the Trace. Harry had it all last year and I was watching it, off and on, ever since I caught it that first day at the playground. But I couldn't anticipate it unless I knew he was casting, and it was slow enough to catch but not consistent; especially at the school, where I think it would get swallowed by the wards. Or maybe there was something else about it, where it would be interrupted in an area deemed… I don't know, but if Riddle sent something down the pipe and I chopped at it without knowing there were two threads on top of whatever else…” He frowned and rattled off, as if from a textbook, “'Lacking constant broadcast there is no immediate delineation without simultaneous traffic'. That's Spencerian Shaperate 101.”

It took Hermione a moment to sift through his rambling. “So, you believe that you were attempting to interrupt the Trace on Harry, and prevented a vision from Riddle instead?”

“That's my first, off-the-top-of-my-head theory, yes. Because I distinctly remember severing what I thought was a Trace thread when I was coming back to bed from a monster late night crap. I remember it so well because I felt five pounds lighter.”

Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust but refused to comment on Scott's bowel movements. “But why would you be worried about the Trace at Hogwarts? We were allowed to do magic there, Harry's Trace should have been inactive.”

“It wasn't. Not always.”

“That's very odd, then, because it's not as if he ever received any warnings…” Hermione mused.

“Not just him, though. I blocked your Trace, and Ron's, and Neville's, and even Ginny's and Luna's a couple of times. Those threads kept going off, and I thought the Ministry was tracking your spells or something. Finally, I just figured they weren't going any further than the wards.”

“Why didn't you say something?” she said, exasperated.

He raised his arms in aggravation. “Because I thought I was wrong! There wasn't any point, it was all working as intended, no one was getting into trouble and you all seemed just fine with your Trace. So, then, I assumed I was wasting my time. There's a lot of shape things I've done that I didn't go over with you, Hermione. You wouldn't have known what I was talking about anyway.”

“Is that what you were doing when you wandered off all the time? Fiddling with the wards or whatever other magic caught your eye?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

She sighed. The dead of night was not the proper time to see if Scott would divulge more details. And, as much as she hated to admit it, he was probably correct about her level of understanding. The shape was entirely beyond her experiences. “I see. But if you gave up interrupting the Trace, or at least what you thought was the Trace, then why hasn't Harry's scar been acting up again?”

“That's the part I don't understand.”

“Any thoughts you can share?” she said hopefully.

“Like I said, I need some time.”

“Then you can use the time it will take for Harry to calm down. I'll speak with him and let him know, once I have the chance. At least you actually apologised; I am impressed,” she said wryly.

“And it worked so well, too.”

“Let him sleep on it.” She turned to go and then stopped, looking back at him. “Oh, and if I ever hear the two of you say things like that to each other again, I'll jinx you both and you can sort it out as slugs!”

Scott's face lit up with interest. “What kind of slugs? What if my preference is to be a snail?”

She ignored him, climbing the steps into the dark upper reaches of Grimmauld. She went straight to her room instead of Harry's. She didn't have to worry about him being alone, he was with Ginny, and by the time morning came around he would be ready to hear Scott's side of things. Or perhaps not, but, regardless, Hermione wanted more sleep.

Ron was there on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head. He sat up when she walked in. “You all right?”

“I'm fine. He wasn't hostile,” she reported. “A bit reticent, but not hostile. Harry and Ginny?”

“Asleep, I think. Harry didn't want to talk about it. What happened?”

“Harry jumped to conclusions, it seems. Though it's hard to blame him; what he thought had happened certainly _sounds_ like something Scott would do.”

“Did he?”

“Sort of.” She explained what Scott had told her, outlining the uncertainties. “So all we really know is that Scott might have tampered with Harry's curse link instead of the Trace.”

Ron sighed and flopped back down. “Damn, I hate it when they fight. We just get caught in the ruddy middle.”

“Now we know how Harry felt for all those years,” Hermione said ruefully.

“Oh, brilliant: guilt. That's just what I need.”

“Consider it a sense of perspective. Or at least empathy.” She shed the outfit that had been hastily assembled when the shouting below had awoken her and climbed back into bed. “Hopefully Harry will have cooled off by morning and we can have a proper discussion.”

Ron appeared sceptical. “I don't know,” he said, rolling over to drape a warm arm around her. “Ginny's usually good for that, but maybe not when Scott's the problem…”

***—-~**~—-***  

Ginny could scarcely believe what she was doing, even as she reached up and knocked on Scott's door.

When Harry had returned to bed she had been close behind, doing her best to hold back the torrent of questions ricochetting about her mind. She was absolutely furious on his behalf, Scott's brutal comment echoing in memory. But Harry hadn't wanted to talk about it, shrugging off her tentative questions and sitting silently whilst she raged against Scott. Harry's refusal to join in sapped most of the energy out of her reaction. By the time he'd fallen asleep she had lost the momentum of her anger, and was left with worry.

It was also then that she reluctantly remembered the way she had gasped when Harry had all but outright stated he wished Scott had remained dead.

But what had Scott said before that? Ginny thought about his fight with Hermione and all the other occasions he had been such a complete arsehole. It didn't matter how Scott had been provoked — he had no right to speak to Harry that way. If there were sides to be taken in a fight between friends, she knew whose side she was on. Scott was not deserving of her sympathy.

The problem was that as she sat next to Harry's dozing form, she found herself wondering if her relationship with him was affecting her judgement. She had never wanted to be the sort of girlfriend who said yes to everything, who was blindly supportive and just blind in general. She'd known girls like that at Hogwarts, who dated boys that they thought could do no wrong. And they made fools of themselves, over and over, and learned nothing. Ginny didn't see herself that way. She called Harry on his shite all the time; it was her independence, her fire, that had gained his attention to begin with. He didn't _want_ her to be a passive partner. She was naturally inclined to oblige, letting him know exactly when he was in the wrong.

Her heart was irrevocably loyal to Harry, and that wouldn't change. It _hadn't_ changed, even when she had spent time trying to change it with different boys. She wanted to take his side. But her head was telling her that Harry's fight with Scott seemed far from one-sided. Or at least the part of it she had witnessed.

So that was how she ended up knocking on Scott's door, ready to give him a piece of her mind and maybe, just _maybe_ , tolerate his excuses long enough to hear his version of things.

Scott opened the door with a short enough delay that he must not have been asleep. “Yes?” he said wearily.

Ginny's jaw flexed furiously as she tried to boil her indignation down into the proper words. “You're a massive wanker, you know that?” she said finally, unable to formulate anything more eloquent.

“Is that all?” He started to close the door.

“I'm not finished!” She slapped her palm against the entryway.

“I'm busy, Ginny,” he said shortly. “You're mad at me, I get it.”

“No, _you're_ mad if you think you can say something like that to Harry and get away with it!” she said.

“Nice use of grammatical context. Now, I'm _busy.”_

“I don't care.” She pushed passed him and entered the room. Halting by the bed, she spun around to face him and crossed her arms.

Scott pressed his face into his hands and ran them over his head; he made an odd sort of groaning chuckle in tandem with the gesture, a sound more related to disbelief than humour. His hair had grown out to the point that it almost fell past his eyebrows, and when he lowered his hands it began slowly settling downwards from where he had pushed it up, as if it were reflecting his mood. “Gin,” he said with a tight, uneven smile, “this may not be the time to assert yourself.”

Was that supposed to be threatening? Perhaps having Harry Fucking Potter as her boyfriend had made her somewhat blasé when it came to smouldering, dangerous-type blokes, but Ginny had never found Scott intimidating. Granted, that had been back at Hogwarts when he was a teen and didn't _loom_ over her quite so much as he did now, with his musculature and endless Muggle implements of murder. But she remained unafraid, because she knew he would never hurt her. Oh, sure, he'd dismember a room full of Death Eaters if he had to, but he'd never lift a finger against his Primes. She had his number.

So he could stand there and look at her with the same intense, slightly unhinged glare that he'd used on certain Slytherins, but she really didn't care. She could see the cracks in the façade, the slight softness at the edges of his eyes, the way his shoulders slumped. She knew he was _trying_ to intimidate her. When he was staring down a Slytherin in the hallways, he didn't have to try: an air of imminent violence would come over him, and he just _was_. That air was conspicuously absent.

Also, he was wearing nothing but an old t-shirt and boxers which displayed his hairy legs and rather knobbly knees. So that was really working against him.

“I think it's a perfect time to assert myself,” she said.

His shoulders slumped a bit more. “So you want to waste your breath yelling at me?”

“I want an explanation.”

He must have decided to drop his menacing act, because a flicker of surprise crossed his face. “Really.”

She didn't like his dubious tone. “What? Is Hermione the only one around here who gets answers from you? The rest of us aren't allowed?”

“I believe we've touched on those exclusion issues. And I already talked to her, and I think you'd rather hear what I had to say from her, not me.”

“That would make _your_ life easier, I'll bet. I'm already here, though, so too bad.”

“It would make my life easier if I picked you up and tossed you out of here,” Scott said equably.

He could, but she didn't think he would. “Harry wouldn't care for that,” she warned.

“Hiding behind your boyfriend's skirts?”

“Does it look like I'm bloody hiding?”

“No, not you,” Scott said with a sort of tired amusement, and then he began to explain.

Ginny didn't fully understand what Scott was saying; she'd been privileged to only a fraction of whatever previous insights into the shape he had offered. But she knew that even Hermione was quickly lost when he explored the subject. It didn't help that he seemed to take so much of it for granted and spoke as if he expected them all to be familiar by matter of course. She understood enough to know that Scott had definitely made some sort of mistake. Still, Harry wasn't blameless.

And from Ginny's perspective, the only mistake Scott had made was neglecting to mention anything to Harry. Because blocking the curse-link wasn't a problem — it was an utter relief.

“So you didn't know that you did that to him,” she said, making sure.

“I have mixed feelings about blocking the link at all, on purpose or not. It sounds useful. I need to know more.”

Ginny's eyes widened. “It's dangerous for him!” she hissed. “Do you _want_ him to get possessed? No, don't answer that. I'm hacked off with you enough as it is. You should have told him that you'd blocked Tom out, maybe you didn't know, but don't you ever let Tom back into his head if you can stop it!”

She fought back the tendrils of panic that wrapped themselves around her heart, bringing memories of the diary. The thought of Riddle having access to Harry's head was terrifying, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't lose him. Not like that. And Harry was brave enough, mad enough, to welcome Riddle's connection if he thought it would help the mission. She couldn't let that happen. She knew how easy it was to lose pieces of yourself that way. The Dark could be comforting, and seduced as easily as it frightened.

Scott reacted to her vehemence by looking thoughtful. “Is this curse-link that much of a threat?”

“Don't _ever_ let Tom into Harry's head,” she said, making her stance absolutely clear.

“Even if Harry hates me for it?”

“I'll talk to him if I have to,” she pledged.

The fact that Ginny would be willing to intercede on Scott's behalf seemed to affect him more than anything else had. “Is this because of the diary thing?”

“This isn't about me,” she said quickly. She didn't want to talk about the diary with Scott. “You need to protect Harry, you said you would.”

Scott nodded. “And I will, but it sounds like he isn't going to want me to stop this particular thread.”

“Then tell him you aren't!” she said urgently, not stopping to think about it.

“…But, that's why he was screaming at me in the first place.”

Ginny shook her head in frustration. Scott didn't get it, he didn't understand her desperate, overriding fear of losing Harry to Tom's influence. She knew what it was like, she carried the scars, and the thought of Harry gradually succumbing to the Dark that forced its way into his mind was horrifying to the point that she would do anything to avoid it. Harry would gladly throw away his sanity if it meant assuaging his overriding sense of responsibility and guilt, but she was _not_ going to let that happen.

Scott didn't seem to grasp that he was the cure. He had the power to keep Harry safe from the curse-link and the self-sacrificing impulse to use it. Ginny had confronted Scott with the intention of giving him a good telling off for making such an inappropriate comment about Sirius, but she was willing to let even that go if Scott would just protect Harry's mind.

She tried to think of a solid argument that would appeal to Scott's tactical considerations, if he wasn't taking Harry's health seriously. “Look, what… What about the Fidelius? Harry's a Secret Keeper; what if Tom got into his head and found us here?”

Scott appeared contemplative. “It was my impression that the location has to be given willingly… On the other hand, without understanding exactly how Harry's thread works, we can't say for certain that Riddle _couldn't_ grab it… So, you have a point.”

“Right,” she said, relieved. If Scott agreed with her reasoning, then it was probably logical enough to convince Hermione and maybe Ron. Ginny wanted them on her side if she had to confront Harry.

Not that she wanted to confront Harry, or do anything to hurt him if she could help it. But he was mental if he thought she was going to stand idly by as he risked his sanity and soul for unlikely benefits.

“Strange night,” Scott dryly remarked. “You came in here to pick a fight and end up asking for my help.”

He'd better not be gloating. “I want you to help _Harry.”_

“What do you think I've been doing?”

“Lying to him and throwing Sirius in his face,” Ginny said, making it clear to Scott that he had not been completely absolved.

Scott stepped around her and toppled into his bed. “All right. Go away, I'm sleeping, zzzzzzzzz…”

She had made her point, so she started to leave. “Just remember what I said, this is really important,” she told him, hoping he had been taking her seriously.

“Well,” he said, his voice a bit muffled by a pillow, “if anyone knows what they're talking about in this instance, it would be you.”

Harry had once conceded the same thing. Ginny had always hated the residual stains that came from having touched Voldemort's mind, but if that experience was enough to make Harry listen to her again, then perhaps it had all been worth it. It was hard to find an upside to the Chamber. She would take what she could get.

Hermione was outside in the hallway, leaning nervously against the wall.

Ginny frowned at her. “Have you been eavesdropping?”

Hermione shook her head. “No! I had to use the loo, and then I heard you on the stairs and thought you were going to confront Scott… So I followed, just in case things got out of hand.”

So Hermione _had_ been eavesdropping. “You thought we would try to kill each other?” Ginny said, a bit affronted at the idea. She had traded words with Scott on more than one occasion, but never spells.

“You can't blame me for thinking you two need a chaperone!” Hermione said defensively.

“Us? You and Scott fight more than anybody!”

“It's not the same. We argue in a more academic parlance,” Hermione said loftily.

“Bit swotty tonight, are you?”

Hermione ignored that comment with a disdainful air. “So? What did he say?”

“Some rubbish about how it was all an accident. He made it sound good, but who knows?”

Hermione sighed. “We can't prove it one way or the other, but it was my feeling that he was being honest.”

Ginny wasn't entirely sure she wanted to admit it, but she said, “I do care about whether he was lying to Harry, I really do. But… I don't think that matters as much as whether he can stop Tom from getting to Harry.”

Hermione brightened. “Exactly! Harry never could be bothered to learn Occlumency properly, and this is just the solution we needed. I should have thought of it earlier, really.”

“Harry won't see it that way.”

Hermione bit her lip, hesitating. “We will have to be very careful, I think,” she said slowly. “He could easily see us siding with Scott as a betrayal.”

Ginny felt a stab of irritation. “Bollocks, why should we have to tiptoe around him just because he wants to be an unreasonable git?”

“I'm just saying how he might feel. He thinks that scar is his chance to turn things around, and he won't care if that puts him at risk. You know what he's like.”

“We aren't siding _with_ Scott, he was wrong not to tell Harry and I still can't believe what he said earlier—”

“He wasn't exactly unprovoked…”

“—As if he has any right to say that,” Ginny continued, disregarding Hermione's tentative defence of Scott. “We're using him to fix a problem.”

“Harry doesn't see it as a problem. We're going to have to work to convince him. You can be… Well, _convincing_ in ways I can't…” Hermione said delicately.

Ginny's mouth dropped open. “Are you suggesting I bring this up while my tits are in his face?”

Hermione blushed, but said, “If you think that would help.”

“Hermione Granger, you are becoming a devious woman. I like it.” Ginny's grin faded a bit and she added, “Just don't tell me if you've done the same with my brother.”

“I haven't any intention of doing so. Telling you, that is. I might yet put Ron's face—”

“Stop!”

“HEY! SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!” Scott thundered from behind his door.

“Oh, that's rich. He's probably been listening to every word, not sleeping,” Hermione said, glaring at the shut door. “Shall we forget who woke everyone in the first place?” she said, raising her voice.

Scott did not reply.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “If only he'd stay quiet. Well, I don't know about you but I'm off to bed. See you in the morning, or whenever you decide to pry yourself off of Harry.”

Back in the bedroom, Harry was sound asleep. Ginny was glad; he needed more rest, and she wouldn't have to explain where she'd been. Looking at his face, lax and peaceful in sleep in a way it never had been in waking, she felt a reluctance come over her. Did she really have to side with Scott? Harry didn't need his girlfriend against him when the world was. And though it was for his own good, he'd had more than enough of people doing things for his own good. The last thing she wanted was to work against him, not when he needed her support so badly.

But equally urgent was her deep, overriding terror for the state of his mind. He had to see what a terrible idea going into Tom's head was. He _had_ to. She didn't know what she would do if he wouldn't see reason. She would debate with him, plead with him, scream at him… She would cry, even though she knew he didn't like that. Whatever it took to save him from himself.

She crawled onto the bed next to him and placed an arm around his torso, resting her cheek on his shoulder. If she pressed her ear close enough, she could hear his heart beat; it was that sound which she followed into sleep.

***---~**~---***  

Harry awoke feeling more tired than he had when he'd gone to sleep. It took a moment for him to remember why.

Part of it could be attributed to the tumultuous night, but another part was a simple unwillingness to confront the day. He didn't want to get out of bed, because getting out of bed meant having to talk. And having to talk meant having to face what had happened, and, more specifically, what he had said.

He could recall every word, and the echoes of his furious vituperations washed over him in a hot wave of shame.

He hadn't meant to say those things to Scott. Once again, his anger had driven him to lash out at his friends without giving them an opening to share their side of things. Maybe Scott had been deserving of such rage (though whether he had deserved Harry's more pointed comments was another issue), but, in the clear light of the morning, Harry could process the argument with a clarity that had been lacking in the dark of the night. Scott had never admitted guilt, and he had never been given the chance to explain. What that meant, exactly, remained to be seen. But Harry knew he had let his fury and frustration get the better of him.

Scott's verbal reprisal had been so devastating because it had been true. Harry _had_ got Sirius killed. He _had_ rushed headlong into a trap. It hurt to have it thrown back in his face, but staying angry about it would be a kind of hypocrisy, he thought. Perhaps the whole sorry adventure had served to illustrate what a poor excuse for a leader Harry was, a decidedly second-rate 'Chosen One'. Did Scott hold Harry in contempt? It had certainly sounded like it. Perhaps Harry had violated the soldier's creed that Scott adhered to. Harry was a fuck-up, a liability. A danger to his own comrades.

He was suffused with guilt, a leaden weight in his chest. But there was still enough anger flickering in the hollow around his heart for him to discount an apology. Scott hadn't outright said that he'd blocked the curse-link; he hadn't continued to deny it, either.

He would get a chance to do both, once Harry could find it in himself to roll out of his sheets.

A warm weight settled on the bed next to him, and the subtle floral fragrance let him know it was Ginny. “Harry? Are you awake?” she said quietly.

That was the question. His body said no. His brain knew better. “…Yeah.”

She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he said truthfully.

“Still in a strop?”

Her tone was gentle, but the question was direct enough. Harry grimaced into his pillow. “Not at the moment.”

“Good. I've got some things to tell you, before you have to see anyone else,” she said.

That was interesting enough to make him roll over and look at her. “What do you mean?”

She seemed to be having trouble meeting his eyes. “I talked to Scott last night, after you were asleep.”

He understood: she was reluctant to look at him because she was afraid he was going to explode after she admitted to speaking with the 'enemy'. Harry wasn't angry. He was just knackered.

“You just talked?” he asked, wondering how that could have happened without violence.

“I didn't try to kill him, if that's what you're asking,” she said with a bit of an edge, obviously not happy with his automatic assessment of her temperament.

“Let me guess: he says he has nothing to do with my scar.”

“He said that he did, but—”

Harry sat straight up. “That son of a _b_ —”

“— _But_ — _”_ Ginny stressed, pushing her hands against Harry's chest, “—that he didn't do it on purpose!”

Harry almost laughed. “Really? _That's_ the best he can do? What kind of rubbish is that?”

“I don't know… But, Hermione thought it was true.”

That brought Harry up short. There was some form of betrayal implicit in such a revelation, but it was also sobering. Hermione was not easily convinced of anything, especially when Scott was involved.

Harry wasn't sure how to deal with that. “Why?”

“It made sense. To her, anyway, it sounded like a load of nonsense to me,” Ginny admitted.

“So you thought he was lying?” Harry said, gratified by her admission.

She dropped her hands from where they had still been resting on his torso. “I think… That Scott has a good reason,” she said slowly, her eyes assessing Harry's face.

He couldn't believe her. “Bollocks,” he said hotly. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped to his feet. “Where is he? If he's so bloody convincing, he can tell me himself.” Before he could move, Ginny reached out and hugged him, pulling him back down to the bed. “Gin!” he protested, though he didn't try too hard to escape her grip.

“Harry, listen to me. I know Scott's been a git, and you have every right to be angry about what happened. But don't ask him to let Tom back into your head,” she pleaded.

“I'm not, I'm going into _his_ head if I can. Think of what we could learn!” he enthused, hoping she would see the possibilities. A vision at the right moment could even end the war.

His hopes were dashed when she glared at him, jaw set. “I don't care what we could learn. I care about _you._ And if you think I'm going to just smile and go along when you give Tom another chance at possessing you, you're mental!”

Of course: the diary. It all came back to the Chamber, and the diary. Harry's heart sank a little as he considered just how utterly opposed Ginny was going to be to the curse-link. He hadn't thought about it before, but he should have.

He tried to think of a way to bring her back to his side. “It's not really the same as the diary, he doesn't usually _want_ me to see what he's seeing. It's like spying, not like…”

“Like a two-way connection? Like losing your energy, your mind, entire days? Like giving away parts of yourself you didn't know you wouldn't get back?” She was holding herself so tightly that the muscles of her slender neck stood out in stark relief, and her voice held a quaver that made Harry's heart ache.

He didn't know how to make his case without hurting her. “Ginny…”

“Don't,” she forbade him. “Don't try to make me feel better about this.”

“I'd be a rubbish boyfriend if I didn't.”

“No, you'll be — well, all right, yes, but — you'll be a rubbish boyfriend when you get possessed and turn into Tom! You think I want to date the Dark Lord?”

Harry, extremely aware of her emotional state, phrased his answer very carefully. “No, of course not. But what I'm trying to say is that, right now, we really need some answers. And there are risks, yeah, but we have to take some if we're going to win.”

“No! You are _not_ going to put your sanity on the line when you don't even know if it will get you anything!”

He leaned away from her, his efforts to curb his own anger beginning to fail. “You knew this would be dangerous! You knew what I was getting into, I _told_ you about the Horcruxes and the Prophecy and you _knew_ when I was leaving that I might not ever come back, and you still came with! After I told you you couldn't, remember? So don't tell me I can't take a chance!”

“I bloody well _will_ tell you when you're being stupid!” she shot back.

He stood and towered over her, hands clenched. “This isn't your choice. It's not up for debate. It's my mission and my scar and if I want to try and use it to help us, you don't get to tell me I can't!”

She jumped up after him, matching his stance. Her face was flushed with rage, but her eyes betrayed her fear for him. “ _Your_ mission? You're up your own arse, Harry!”

“I'm serious, this is too important—”

“You listen to me. You **_listen_** _,”_ she hissed, and she grabbed the sides of his face and forced him to look her directly in the eyes. “Maybe you're too much of a git to remember that we love you and we are scared to _death_ for you, but, even ignoring that, I am _making_ it my decision when you are putting everyone at risk with your stupidity!”

“I'm pretty sure you can handle me if Riddle takes up residence. There's only one of me,” Harry scoffed.

“Oh, that's good, I'm so happy you were thinking ahead, but, and here's a thought: _you are a Secret Keeper.”_

Harry could almost feel the bottom dropping out of his argument. “I… It probably doesn't work like that…”

“Prove it! _Without_ killing us all!” Ginny spat. “Oh, and in case you've forgotten, the Prophecy says that only **you** can kill Tom. So hand the keys to your head over if you want to kill us all anyway!”

Harry froze, her words splashing across him like ice water. He had been so sure he had found the solution to his persistent problem of information — all he needed was for Scott to fix whatever had been broken. But he had failed to consider the risks to anyone other than himself. Harry could gamble his own health, mental and otherwise. He'd done it before and he would do it again, Ginny's wishes notwithstanding. There just wasn't any way around it.

Placing everyone else's lives and their only safe haven on the line was not a chance he was willing to take.

The fact that Ginny had presented such an insurmountable argument was infuriating. Harry had no riposte. “God! What have I _missed?_ How many visions…”

“How many lies?” Ginny said rhetorically, reminiscent of Scott's cold words.

Harry didn't care for the reminder. “Scott still shouldn't have played with, with my… Sodding, _threads_ , fucking whatever,” he said stiffly.

“He might have said something, yeah, but it was still good,” Ginny told him. “He did you a favour. And if you can't see that, then you haven't grown up as much as I'd thought.”

That stung. “Not even going to pretend to take my side, Gin?”

“No, Harry, because this time you're wrong!”

She looked as if she was about to say more, and then stopped. She glanced out the door, looking at something. Harry was just about to move and see what it was when she turned back and fixed him in place with one last scorching glare; the tears in the corners of her eyes didn't detract from its power, they only made it heart-rending. Then she stormed from the room.

He was left with such a bewildering mess of emotions that he didn't know what to try and deal with first. Even his righteous anger towards Scott was no longer a surety.

A shadow fell across the floor. It was Hermione, standing silhouetted in the doorway with her arms crossed. She stepped inside and Ron followed her. “So much for feminine wiles,” she muttered.

Harry blinked. “What?”

“Don't concern yourself. How much did she explain?”

“Enough to know you're against me, too,” Harry said.

“I most certainly am not!” Hermione objected vociferously. “What I'm against is your foolish plan to make yourself vulnerable again. I don't know exactly what Ginny's told you, but if she hasn't already made it clear why using your link to Riddle is such an awful idea, then I will be more than happy to do so!”

Harry ignored the offer, looking past her towards Ron. “What about you, mate? Here to tell me I've cracked?”

Ron's eyes darted towards the open door; he plainly wished to be anywhere else. “I barely know what's going on, mate.”

“Come off it. You know what this is about.”

Ron sighed. “It's a real chance you're talking, Harry. I know you think you can handle it, and maybe you're right, but… If it goes wrong, then that's it, yeah?”

Harry was being forced to face the possibilities inherent in his decision to use the link. And not just the possibilities that had encouraged him to confront Scott in the first place. He wasn't feeling all that reasonable, but when everyone closest to him was declaring that he was risking too much, one after the other… He was self-aware enough to realise that much of his anger was springing from resentment. He resented the lack of blind support from his friends, he resented the logic being thrown at him, and he resented having to question his own recklessness. He'd rarely second-guessed himself in the past, and it had generally worked out well enough.

It hadn't worked out too well for Sirius, though.

“So Scott mucking about in the shape… I am supposed to just let that go?” Harry said, already feeling defeated.

Hermione shook her head. “Of course not! You should demand a thorough explanation, you deserve one. Severing the link was definitely for the best and is, without reservation, an enormous relief, but he should have at least said something.”

“He'd have done it anyway, even if I said no,” Harry muttered.

“I really can't say what he might have done at the time. Now, yes — Ginny made a rather excellent point regarding your status as a Secret Keeper.”

“Yeah, that's me, I never think of anything and I'm too bloody reckless!” Harry said loudly.

“Harry, please. I would be the first to admit that the link has _some_ merit as a weapon, and might even tell us something vital. _However,”_ she stressed, “the risks are too great. It's as simple as that, risk versus reward. The 'rewards' are nebulous at best and the risks are extreme.”

Perversely, it was more acceptable to Harry's mind to hear such an impersonal assessment of the curse-link. Otherwise, he was left with the thought that perhaps his friends' desire to see him safe was interfering with their understanding that danger was inevitable and often necessary. Hermione was making it clear that the link was not logistically viable.

And as much as Harry wanted to argue, he didn't have a counterpoint other than, 'but it might work'.

“…I get it,” he said finally. “I'm outvoted.”

“It's for the best,” Hermione said gently.

“Right,” he said shortly. He was too stubborn to be totally convinced, but it was obvious he wasn't going to get what he wanted for the time being. “Now where's Scott?”

“Kitchen, I think,” Ron volunteered.

“That'll do,” Harry said grimly, and pushed past Hermione on his way out the door.

“Try to keep your head!” Hermione said, hurrying along behind him.

“Have I been shouting at you? I must have missed that.”

“No, but you're hardly calm! Will you wait—” She caught him by the arm at the top of the steps. “Harry!”

He pulled out of her grasp. “What?” he said impatiently.

“You're going to start all over again, that's what! You're going to storm down there and shout and we'll be right back where we started!”

Harry leaned around her and looked at Ron. “Could you get your girlfriend off my back?”

“No, 'cause she's right,” Ron said almost apologetically. “If you don't settle things with Scott, mate, we're never going to get anything done — and we've got a fuck load to get done.”

“Ron!” Hermione hissed, slapping the back of her hand against his chest.

“Oi! Whatever,” Ron scoffed. “It's just a word, get over it.”

“It's a word you shouldn't be saying!”

“Is this really the time to act like my mum?”

“I wouldn't have to if I weren't surrounded by rude boys that think swearing makes them sound cool!”

Harry took the distraction offered by their argument and hurried down the stairs. There was a clatter of pots and pans emanating from the kitchen, and when he walked into the room he saw Sophie on her knees in front of the cupboards, apparently in the midst of rearranging things. Kylie was helping her by stacking the various utensils in piles whilst Ginny sorted out the silverware. Scott was standing over them, either supervising or adding nothing to the proceedings (most likely both).

“Scott,” Harry said, gaining the man's attention. Scott's expression — which had been openly amused as he'd watched the girls work — became unreadable. “We should talk.”

“Can we keep it civil?” Scott asked, inclining his head towards Kylie.

“Time for a break!” Sophie declared before Harry could reply. She set down the kettle she had been holding and stood, steering Kylie towards the stairs. “Please try not to shout,” she said quietly to Harry as she passed.

Ginny did not leave; she moved to stand just behind Harry's shoulder in silent support. Harry was just grateful that she had forgiven him so quickly — though that might not last, depending on what he said next.

“So, my scar.” Harry rubbed at it. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Scott said nothing for a moment, probably assessing Harry's disposition. “I can tell you what I think happened.”

That wasn't what Harry wanted to hear, but he said, “All right.”

Scott explained that threads were not always easy to differentiate within the shape, especially if they were extant, but not active. He had repeatedly blocked what he'd considered to be the Trace under the assumption that the Ministry might be tracking Harry through it (and the way Scott described the Trace, it actually sounded similar in working to the Taboo). But after some trial and error, Scott had discovered that the Trace was always working, though the wards around Hogwarts prevented it from going anywhere. He had ceased meddling with the tracking spell.

“The thing I still don't understand is why you haven't had any visions since then. If Riddle is broadcasting from his terminus in conjunction, even unconsciously, then I don't see why it wouldn't re-grow or resume. The Trace works in pulse traffic, so if I chopped at a signal the carrier should still be there, if damaged, which… What if there was sympathetic resonance? Damage done in echo is still cumulative if it exceeds the rate of repair through resumption…”

Scott was getting a bit technical. “Dumb it down for me, mate,” Harry said.

“I don't know why you haven't seen anything from Riddle, especially now that the Trace is gone. But I'm working on it.”

“All right, well… Don't try too hard,” Harry grumbled. “I've been outvoted.”

“Let you know they prefer you un-possessed, did they,” Scott said with a smirk.

“Don't look so proud of yourself. You didn't even know what you were doing.”

“No, but it seems to have worked out, at least for now. And, Ginny had a pretty good point about the Fidelius. It's in our best interests to keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“But think about what we're giving up,” Harry said, making one last attempt to get someone to agree with him. He pretended he didn't hear Ginny's sharp intake of breath behind him. “We've been stuck here without a single sodding idea what to do next. What if I could find out?”

“Man, if it were just me, you might have a chance at convincing me,” Scott said. “God knows it's tempting. And if it worked, it would be an intelligence goldmine. But that's a _huge_ 'if'. You're asking to put our entire operation, personnel and all, on the line for a long shot. You can't even give me a clear picture of the odds.”

“…I don't usually think about that,” Harry admitted.

Scott shrugged. “And that's not a bad instinct when you're up against the wall. I don't know your combat history like Ron and Hermione, but I do know you're good on your feet and take chances when the moment comes. Thing is, this isn't one of those moments.”

It was true. Many times in the past, Harry had defied the odds and taken extreme chances; retreat didn't seem to be his style. But there was a gulf between reacting in the heat of battle and planning a war. He had responsibilities — an 'operation', as Scott had put it. There were people counting on him, an entire war effort depending on the actions of the makeshift team he was a part of.

Harry mentally pledged that, in the future, he would do a better job of remembering that.

“I guess it isn't,” he said.

“Also, if I'm going to be honest… Hermione told me the curse-link was a bad idea. And when Hermione tells me something magical is a bad idea, I tend to listen,” Scott said.

Harry had to smile at that. “Smart of you. I wish I had listened more, my marks would be better.”

“Nobody mention this to her, all right? We'll never hear the end of it, seriously,” Ginny cautioned.

“Like she doesn't know,” Scott said.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Scott… We'll keep Riddle blocked, then, but… Let me know if anything changes. Or if you change it.”

Scott nodded. “Yeah, definitely. I wish I knew how it works.”

“Doesn't really matter for now, looks like. That's that,” Harry said, and he couldn't quite suppress the irritation that came from having to let the whole idea drop. Maturity was hard. “Let's get everyone together for supper tonight. We need to talk about Horcruxes again; we have to do _something.”_

“Agreed. If we can't locate a military target, maybe we can put together something for reconnaissance.”

Harry left the kitchen to go and get dressed (he'd never put any socks on, and the stone floor was cold). Ron and Hermione's door was closed; they must have ended their argument in the usual fashion.

Ginny sat on the bed next to him as he dug a pair of socks out of his trunk. “Thank you for listening,” she said warmly.

“Didn't have much choice, did I?” he said, though not with any ire. “I was wrong.”

“We'll find another way. It'll all work out,” she said optimistically.

Harry had never been good at optimism. “We'll see.”


	19. For Your Information

**19**

**For Your Information**

\---

 _Wilt thou speak now, O guarded youth?_  
 _Thy lips dost bloom with tongues and truth._  
 _Cast loose the ripened, press the wine_  
 _lest thy words wither on the vine._  


—Susanna B. Aether, _Still Lost, Constantia_  
(Verse VIII: lines 23—26)

\---

Harry took another bite of his sandwich, resting his elbows on the table and looking at nothing in particular. “So the Trace is kind of like the Taboo.”

“Sort of,” Scott said. “The Taboo isn't a constant connection; it just seems to be able to find you, somehow, like owls do. Did Hermione ever tell you about the time she came to find me on top of the Astronomy Tower?”

“I don't think so.”

“Dumbledore helped her. He sent this weird floating blue orb to find me. At the time, I thought it made a connection and followed the thread, which is how I think the owls work. I thought it just happened really fast. But now… Now I think it was following a strand that was already there. I think Hogwarts tracks everyone within the walls, all the time. And I think your map taps into that.”

It made sense. The Map itself was complicated, but didn't seem to be especially powerful. Harry wondered how his father and the other Marauders had managed to unravel that particular Hogwarts secret. “But the Trace is different because it's always there.”

Scott dropped the bit of crust he had been gnawing on back onto his plate. “Right. I can't break the Taboo because it doesn't exist until the moment of broadcast. Except, that doesn't make sense. In order for you to broadcast in the first place you need a medium, you don't have a carrier. Unless it's omnidirectional, and amplified at the receiving end… Which would really be something else, that's verging on Kharadjai tech…”

“But is the Trace really fast like the Taboo?”

“It's fast, but not as fast.”

“So how did you catch it that day on the playground?”

“You know I would love to claim it was by virtue of my tremendous talent. I can't, though, it was sheer luck. I had already been examining your threads very closely when Tonks opened up on me, and when the Trace pulsed I was knocking out magical connections to you in case they were a form of attack.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “So you just stopped the Trace by accident. And probably my curse-link with it. Again.”

“You know, I might have at that,” Scott said agreeably.

“Obviously, Riddle never had a chance of reaching me with you around.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

The two of them were lingering over a late lunch after a productive training session with the others. Scott had been teaching them how to divide themselves for suppression and flanking, which was a bit difficult in the limited space they had. Despite that, they had made progress. It was encouraging to see how much better everyone moved and fought as a team with just a little proper instruction. They had learned a lot at Hogwarts, but small unit tactics and coherency hadn't been on the curriculum.

Scott's attempts to teach them standard Third Army hand signals had been less successful. The basics weren't all that difficult to remember, but once Scott started getting into the distinctions between command and subordinate gestures, as well as what seemed like a million different motions for unique enemy signatures and weapons (most of which didn't even exist in Harry's world), confusion set in. There was theoretically a difference between the gesture for a stationary sentry and a mobile one, but Harry couldn't remember what it was.

Harry had also taken Scott's words outside of the Timous Manor to heart, and had been trying to increase the number of spells he could cast nonverbally. It was much more difficult than he had hoped, though he supposed he should have expected that after his poor results during Snape's lesson. Harry didn't know if he was just naturally bad at nonverbal casting or if it took the kind of time to learn that he didn't have.

Thus far he had managed to nonverbally cast the Severing Charm consistently, and made fair progress with the Banishing Charm. He had been disappointed to note that the spells he did manage to cast without speaking had all been considerably weaker than their shouted variant, with the sole exception of his _Expelliarmus._ That spell, at least, produced equivalent results.

He drew his wand underneath the table and tried a Summoning Charm on Scott.

Scott's eyebrows shot up and he glanced down at his left armpit as the handgun beneath his button-up flannel shirt protruded against the fabric, vibrating wildly. “What is it, little guy? Is it feeding time?”

“Not much fun when you've got it all strapped in there,” Harry said, disappointed that the weapon hadn't flown towards him.

“That was a good one, though. Last time you _Accio'd_ my shit I barely felt it.”

“There's a bit of a knack.”

“And what's that?” Scott said somewhat disinterestedly.

Harry held his wand up to the light. “I don't know… Sometimes I just do better.”

“Well, that makes one of us.” Scott pushed away from the table. “At least I don't have Flitwick riding me any more.”

“Where's your wand, anyway?” Harry asked.

Scott reached up into his sleeve and yanked his wand out with an odd 'click', as if it had been fastened to something. Harry noted that it had not been well taken care of. “Just in case.”

“Where'd you get it? Maybe they made a mistake and it's not right for you.” Harry had never heard of anything like that happening, but surely it was a possibility.

Scott shrugged. “I stole it.”

“From who?”

“From the shop.”

Harry stared at him. “Are you daft? Don't you know anything about wandlore?”

“Yeah, sure, because we built the Republic by waving sticks at each other, _Harry._ The only wood in the army is the erection Halsey gets when he orders you dusted from orbit!”

“Whatever, but—”

“Try doing some belt mining, maybe, all this wood and stone was a great look a couple centuries ago. You might discover a few things, like alloys and high-contact ceramics and superconductors—”

“Yes, you hate the wizarding world, I get it!”

“'Hate' is a strong word, Harry.”

“How do you spend a year at Hogwarts without knowing you should have gone to a wandmaker? Honestly…”

“I went to Ollivander's! He's supposed to be the best, right, that's all I fucking heard at school, Ollivander, Ollivander, Ollivander, everyone has wands from fucking Ollivander!”

“Yeah, because he's popular around here, but all those people actually had him find the proper wand! The wand chooses the wizard, mate. It could be a big part of your problems.”

“Then where did all the first-years get their wands?”

“I… don't know. I got mine at Ollivander's.”

Scott threw his head back and sighed. “Ollivander was gone, I needed a wand, I took one. It didn't work well, but it worked sometimes and now who cares?”

Harry didn't think that was a wise attitude. “All this training you've been doing with us for fighting without magic, and you ask me that? If we might have to survive without a wand, what makes you think you'll always have a gun?”

“The fact that I'd be better off sharpening this thing to a point and putting it through someone's eye. It takes me too long to put a spell together to bother with it, and that was in a classroom setting.”

“But having a good wand could make it a lot easier. You won't know until you try it.”

“Again, there's this little problem of supply…”

“Ask Kylie where she got hers,” Harry suggested.

“Maybe I'll look into it. Hell, I guess I could write Trevor if Kylie can't help me.” Scott leaned forward in his chair, bringing the front legs back down with a loud clack on the stone floor. “Which reminds me: do you have any more of those owl treats? Hedwig was looking to me earlier and they were all gone.”

“I'll check my trunk. Or you can ask Hermione if she has any in her handbag.”

After leaving the kitchen they ran into Ginny on the ground floor as she was coming from the upper storeys. Her hair swung heavily, weighted downwards with damp, and it was obvious she had just finished with the shower.

“Ginnaaaayyyy,” Scott said by way of greeting. “Was struck by a thought: do you ever reflect on the irony inherent in you dumping Dean because he was too condescending and overprotective, but fighting tooth and nail to stay with Harry even though he tried to _leave_ you for reasons both condescending and overprotective?”

“Yeah, constantly. I spend all my free time reflecting on the irony,” Ginny said without missing a beat.

“There's something about him, obviously,” Scott mused. “Something that made you persevere through behaviour you wouldn't begin to tolerate from anyone else.”

“She tolerates that from me? This is news,” Harry said dryly.

“Shut it, you big blond pillock,” Ginny told Scott. “Harry, are you going to the training room? I'd like another go with your gun.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Scott wondered.

“Maybe later. I'm about to go sort out my trunk, I've been putting it off,” Harry explained.

Scott couldn't take a hint. “And then are you going to sort out _her_ trunk?”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don't know. Something to do with anal, I guess…?”

“How about I sort out _your_ bum with my foot?” Ginny threatened.

“Who says I was talking about you? Harry can bite a pillow.”

“Why don't you go sort out your innuendo? Come on, Gin,” Harry said, taking her hand and leading her back up the steps.

“What if I don't want to help sort your rubbish?” she complained.

“Yeah, you do. It'll be fun, somehow.”

The light up in their room had never been very good, so Harry set his lit wand on top of the trunk lid once it was opened. He surveyed the piles inside with great reluctance — Ginny's description of it being 'rubbish' hadn't been far from the truth. The last time he'd taken a good look into his trunk had been sometime before the wedding, he couldn't remember exactly when. The night they had crept back into The Burrow he hadn't done much more than push everything aside in search of the suitcase.

He started digging into the right side of the trunk whilst Ginny picked through the left with a more delicate touch. The first thing he set aside was the mokeskin pouch gifted by Hagrid — dead useful, from the sound of it. It wasn't as big internally as Hermione's handbag, but as only he could take anything out once it was placed inside, he needed to start using it for certain valuables.

On top of the pile was a package of Chocolate Cauldrons; he checked the wrapping and noted they were quite old, so he tossed them into the bin. His Quidditch robes had somehow become jumbled up with a bunch of the jumpers from Mrs Weasley, no doubt during transit. He spent a moment trying to separate them before giving up and placing the tangled ball on the floor, along with several pairs of socks that he hoped were clean (the odds weren't good).

It looked like most of the school books were on Ginny's side. No owl treats so far… He found the handle of the ruined penknife Sirius had given him. After a moment's sad contemplation, he placed it back. Below a stack of Transfiguration homework (with average marks at best, he noted with chagrin) was the shiny new cover concealing the old contents of the half-blood prince's Potions book. He held it in his hands, considering it. It was another unsolved mystery in a school full of them. But it had been surpassingly useful — perhaps Hermione might make use of its secrets.

Several boxes of Chocolate Frogs well past their expiration. A piece of parchment he didn't recognise until he flipped it over and saw Scott's mid-DADA work of art, an inked drawing of Ron and Hermione K-I-S-S-I-N-G in a tree (according to the messy caption). Harry had no idea how he'd come into possession of it, but it was highly amusing. He'd have to tack it to a wall somewhere. A scrap of paper with his name on it, spat out by the Goblet of Fire (he remembered Fred giving it to him, who knew where the twins had found it). Still no owl treats.

Spello-tape, the miniature model of a Hungarian Horntail (no longer moving), a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit. Various correspondence, including some of the notes Dumbledore had sent the previous year. His old Sneakoscope, calmingly silent. An Exploding Snap deck. A load of mementos and just plain rubbish had sifted to the bottom, a layer of messy detritus. Mostly Chocolate Frog cards, loose threads, and dust.

He was distracted from delving into the bottom layer when Ginny spoke. “Found some owl treats,” she said, tossing the package to him. “Where'd you get this Firebolt model? That's really detailed.”

“Tonks gave that to me for Christmas fifth year. I was missing my real one.”

“At least you still have it. The real one, I mean. I still can't believe that mad bitch banned you for life like that.”

Harry shrugged, no longer particularly bitter about it. The scars on his hand led to far worse memories of Umbridge. “It got you on the team, didn't it? I'd say that's a silver lining if there ever was one.”

“I suppose… I prefer playing _with_ you, though.” She lifted up a thick stack of books. “Oof. Why didn't you resell these? That's what Mum always… Hang on, what's this?”

Harry peered down with mild curiosity, only to freeze when he saw the object of her attention. He knew exactly what it was and he'd completely forgotten he had it.

“Harry… Is this…” She lifted out a faded card, pressed thin from the weight of the tomes. It cracked a bit when she opened it, stuck together, but otherwise it was in good condition.

Harry could already feel his cheeks burning. The singing get-well card she had given him in third year was at least blessedly silent. He wasn't quite sure why he was embarrassed — at the vivid remembrance of what had been a painfully awkward moment, or at the sentimentality implied in his possession of the card? Perhaps both.

“Why do you have this?” she said quietly, not looking at him.

“Because you gave it to me,” he said honestly.

At that point in his life, and even years later, he hadn't received so many cards or so many _anythings_ that he just tossed them aside. As difficult as it had been for his thirteen-year-old self to accept a shrilly singing card from a blushing, infatuated girl, the fact was that she had come to the hospital wing to give it to him. The idea that someone cared felt new to him, then. Sometimes it still did.

She looked at him, eyes soft. “You didn't have to be so kind to me, when I was silly.”

Harry wanted to shrug it off, but he was utterly caught in her gaze. “You weren't silly, you were… You were _you_ , you were…” He was struggling to find the phrasing. “You were there for me, and… I wasn't ready. I'm sorry.”

She pressed her fingertips to his lips and rolled her eyes. “Harry, are you really apologising for not falling in love with me when you were thirteen?”

“…No? Yes? I mean, I could have at least handled it better…”

“How?” she scoffed. “By pretending? Even back then I would have resented it, eventually. Besides, even if you'd just kissed me on the cheek, I wouldn't have been able to be in the same room with you for a month.”

Harry had been a bit slower to notice girls than some of his other friends, and, given his history with the opposite sex, he had to admit it was unlikely his third-year self could have done better. But the actions of the past were always difficult to correlate to present knowledge, and he was still troubled by the thought that if he had done something, given her even a fraction more of the attention she'd craved, the Chamber might have been avoided.

“I don't know,” he muttered. “It was what you wanted. I should have at least tried to give you that.”

“What I wanted was to close-mouthed kiss Harry Potter, marry him, and then what happened after that was a bit vague,” she said with a half-smile.

“Well, we got the first part taken care of,” he said, returning her grin.

“And a bit extra,” she said, eyeing his mouth. “But we already talked about this, remember? I regret all sorts of things about it, I wish I had done so much differently, I wish… God, I wish I had just asked you to the Yule Ball. Before that I couldn't even talk to you, so… That's the point where things could have been different if I'd just used some of that Weasley courage.”

“Or if I'd not had my head up my arse.”

“Up Cho Chang's arse, anyway, that bint,” Ginny laughed, though there was a definite edge to it.

Harry made a mental note to avoid bringing up Cho in conversation even more fervently than he had been. Obviously, rivalries — even one-sided rivalries — formed that early didn't easily fade away.

“Are you going to keep it, or put it back?” Harry said, nodding towards the card.

“I'm not going to take it! It's your gift, after all,” Ginny said sweetly, and she placed it back where she had found it.

Back to the rubbish. Harry picked up something that looked a lot like one of Crookshanks' hairballs and swiftly deposited it in the bin. There were a few stray Every Flavour Beans that needed to go, as well. He picked at one with his fingernail; it was hard as a rock. He was lifting up another bundled, dusty jumper when a flash of light caught his eye. There, against the back of the trunk, was a reflective surface.

His heart constricted as he gently took the hand mirror from where it had slid down between his belongings and the back wall. He hadn't thought of the mirror Sirius had given him in some time. He didn't even know where the other one was.

A wild, uncontrollable thought surged through him: what if Sirius had the other mirror still with him? What if he had taken it through the Veil? What would that mean? If Harry used it, and received an answer…

Harry held up the mirror in slightly shaking hands. “Hello?” he said, his breath fogging the glass. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

Nothing. He waited a few more seconds, peripherally aware of Ginny watching him with open concern. But Sirius did not answer. He really was gone.

Irrational anger came over Harry like a sudden storm. He had been, if not accepting, then at least resigned to Sirius' death. And then he'd stumbled across this stupid, worthless mirror and been sucked into the inevitable disappointment that came with his insane burst of hope. Furious, he lifted the mirror over his head, intent on smashing it the way it had just smashed him.

“Harry?”

A man's voice. Harry went stock-still for a moment until his brain caught up and realised it wasn't Sirius' voice. He lowered the mirror and looked over his shoulder towards the door. “What, Scott?!” he barked, still angry.

Scott wasn't there. “Harry? I heard you from this thing. Harry, come back.”

Harry looked down into the mirror to see Scott's sharp grey eyes gazing back at him. “Scott?”

“There you are,” Scott said. He moved his head around, apparently studying the mirror's frame, and giving Harry a rather unfortunate view up his nostrils. “So, I don't know why you didn't tell me you had a mirror communication system, but this is exactly the kind of magic junk I need to hear about.”

“I forgot I even had this. Where are you?”

“The motorcycle room.” The image shifted as Scott lifted the mirror from wherever it had been sitting. “Can you still see when I'm moving?”

“Yeah. Works fine.”

“No latency that I can tell, though that might not hold up over real distance. We need to give these to Hermione.”

Harry didn't want to part with his mirror (despite having been ready to smash it moments before). “Why bother, your radio works just as well, and we don't have to hold it.”

“But it won't work everywhere. Maybe this won't, either, but it's nice to have options. Let's at least see what she can tell us.”

When they approached Hermione, she looked a bit put out that her research had been interrupted, but quickly became immersed in the magic of the mirrors. She placed them side by side on her bed and tapped them in turn with her wand, watching as the action was broadcast. It was disorienting to see the two mirrors reflecting the vantage of their opposite.

“I believe this may be a variation on the Protean Charm,” Hermione said. “It's a very malleable bit of magic, you can do all sorts of things with it. This is more complex than anything I've seen so far…”

“Modification, duplication; is that feasible?” Scott said.

“Feasible, yes. Guaranteed, no. Our DA coins were attuned to a master, a 'server', if you will, which filtered down to the rest. These mirrors are working in tandem, neither controlling the other, reflecting changes made to one and then in turn… Quite impressive that they're sensitive enough to copy light and sound, that's a much greater breadth of information than numbers on a coin.”

“You're almost talking about this in telecommunications terms, fidelity and bandwidth,” Scott noted.

“Same concept, different methods… It's often said by wizards that Muggles use their technology to compensate for their lack of magic and accomplish the same things.”

“And typically failing to comprehend just how far they've been surpassed in so many of those things.”

“Yes, we're all aware you're a techno-supremacist,” Hermione said tartly. “I'll work on these and see what I can do. Sophie might speed things along, if she's available.”

“I think she's cleaning the bathrooms again. I'm a little worried she's becoming obsessive.”

“There's nothing wrong with promoting cleanliness.”

“And it saves us the trouble,” Ron added.

Scott went off to find Sophie and, before Hermione could become completely absorbed in her work, Harry made sure to mention the meeting he had planned. “Everyone be around for supper tonight?”

“Where else would we be?” Ron said.

“You know what I mean. We need to talk Horcruxes. We've been stuck too long.”

Ron looked around the room with aversion. “Yeah. Getting a bit sick of it, really. Like that summer all over again.”

“I know you two are eager to do something, but let's not be too hasty,” Hermione cautioned. “Our circumstances are still a sight better than dodging curses.”

Harry shifted impatiently. “We can't keep sitting here, this is taking too long—”

“I'm doing my best!” Hermione cried.

“I wasn't blaming you! I— I just want us to talk about it.”

“All right, we will,” Hermione said stiffly, obviously wounded by the implication that she had failed to provide the next step.

Harry sighed. “I'll see you at supper.”

When Harry left to return downstairs, Ron went with him. Harry made sure to shut the door behind them on the way out; Hermione tended to become annoyed with footsteps in the hallway when she was working, much like she had in the library. At least at Grimmauld Place she didn't have Pince to provide additional noise suppression. Harry grinned when he thought of Scott's clashes with the Hogwarts librarian; his intense dislike of the woman had been entirely mutual.

“What's so funny?” Ron asked.

“Thinking about Pince and Scott.”

Ron immediately wore an answering smile. “Hey, remember when he took out those big bloody books with the letters on them?”

Harry remembered very well. Scott had removed several reference books from their proper places and relocated them to an empty shelf used for temporary sorting. The volumes were arranged according to the alphabet, and he had set them so that the spines spelled 'P-E-N-I-S'. When Ron had critically suggested that 'bollocks' would have been more apropos, considering the medium, Scott had defended himself by pointing out the limitation of one unique book per letter.

They had left before the fruits of Scott's labour were discovered, but by all accounts Pince had been on the warpath for about a week.

At the bottom of the staircase there were noises emanating from the kitchen that sounded a lot like dishes being organised. Harry and Ron wisely decided on the training room as their destination, not wanting to get conscripted into Sophie's latest home improvement project. Inside the dusty, spell-scarred interior, Scott was throwing lightning punches at a dummy made primarily of pillows. He was standing back too far for his hits to really connect, likely a measure to preserve the slapdash construct, which was not built to withstand punishment from a Primare.

“You look like Dudley,” Harry remarked as he watched Scott perform the same kind of boxing moves he had seen his cousin practice. The comparison was not quite accurate, as Dudley had performed the same motions at about a fifth of the speed and with none of the grace.

“Who?” Scott said, not pausing.

“Dudley. My cousin, the bloke you decked for no reason.”

Ron looked delighted. “Aw, and I missed it!”

“Oh, that guy.” Scott hopped away from the crude mannequin and pivoted at the waist, stretching. “Fuckin' chav.”

“You what?” Harry said, taken aback. “What do you know about chavs?”

“You act like I've never been in jolly ol' England before. I know a chav when I see one.” Scott kicked out, getting a decent puff of feathers for his effort. “The chain and the track pants were an especially nice touch.”

“Yeah, well, Dudders' sense of style took a bad turn once Aunt Petunia stopped dressing him. Which, you would think was impossible…”

Ron sighed. “I wish I knew what you were on about, because it sounds brilliant.”

“It sort of was,” Harry agreed.

“I'll say this for the kid: he can take a punch. He was up and walking way sooner than I expected,” Scott said.

“That's good for him, since he's so punchable. He might get more out of life.”

“Really, _really_ lost,” Ron reiterated.

Scott dropped his hands and assessed the dummy. “I gotta stop using this thing. It's the only one we have. So — what did Hermione say about the meeting?”

Harry didn't know why Scott was asking; it wasn't like anyone had better places to be. “She'll be there.”

“Ginny?”

“Not sure where she is, actually…” Harry assumed she was spending some time alone, a rare commodity at Grimmauld. But since he hadn't actually seen her in a fair amount of time, distant klaxons began blaring in the back of his mind. “I'd better go see if I can find her.”

“She hasn't left the building,” Scott said. From anyone else it would have sounded like bland reassurance, but he likely knew for certain.

“Right. I was just saying.”

Scott turned away to inspect the mattresses and Ron leaned in closer to Harry. “All right, mate?” he said, looking at Harry a bit askance.

Harry forced himself to relax. “Yeah. Overreacting.”

“What, you?”

“Stuff it. Scott, you told Sophie that Hermione wants to see her, right?”

Scott waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. She's going up once she's done with whatever she's doing. Something with plates, I don't know.”

“She'll have to let me borrow one, because I'm starving,” Ron declared. He turned to Harry. “Coming?”

“Nah, I'm not hungry. You go ahead.”

“Suit yourself. Just don't go shouting at me when all the crisps are gone — you had your chance,” Ron said, walking out of the room.

“You don't have to eat _all_ of them!” Harry yelled after him.

He loitered around the training room after Ron left, sort of hoping Scott would start practising again. Just watching didn't teach much, especially when Scott did everything so quickly it was hard to see the specifics. But it was always interesting and even a bit inspiring. Wands weren't the only way to survive. Harry wanted to remember that.

Unfortunately, Scott seemed to be doing nothing but stretches, which was boring. Harry started thinking about getting down to the kitchen before all the crisps really were gone. Hungry or not, he still wanted his share.

“You've been spending a lot of time with Ginny,” Scott said suddenly, as if that was somehow a meaningful observation. Harry had a very short list of available people to spend time with, and Ginny was at the top of that list.

“Is this jealousy? Should I try to be sensitive?”

“Oh, don't spare my feelings.”

Harry sighed. “It's great, you know? With her I feel like… I just forget. I don't have to think about things, I can imagine a future, going places with her… or whatever. Then something else happens and I wake up. And I remember it doesn't matter what I want, because I have to fight a Dark Lord and I'm not going to live long enough to really be with Gin the way I want to.”

“Agree to disagree. Even so, you can still get laid _before_ that.”

Harry didn't have a response for that, mostly because he really wished it was true. “I hope you have some ideas about Horcruxes for tonight. Because I don't.”

“Really.” Scott sounded unconvinced. “All this time and you haven't thought of a single thing.”

Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement; he'd been exaggerating. “The snake. It already came after us once. Maybe we can find it again.”

“The problem with the snake is that it's a pet. Riddle will miss it.”

“I know!” Harry nearly shouted, instantly exasperated. He caught himself and said, more evenly, “I know, yeah. But it's got to be luck that he hasn't noticed already, right? I mean, how long can we expect to go before he checks on at least one of them?”

“We can't do anything about that. If it happens, it happens, but it doesn't seem like he watches his Horcruxes very closely. Between all the traps and the fact that the damn things do a pretty good job of protecting themselves, I guess he figures he doesn't have to.”

“Cross your fingers, then,” Harry said. There wasn't much else to do but pray. That, and try to finish the war before Riddle found the time to check on his things.

To that end, the entire group convened that night in the kitchen. The meal was a fairly boisterous affair, which was heartening. It always made Harry feel better when everyone could escape the pressure and the gloom long enough to enjoy themselves. Scott entertained Hermione and Kylie with a predictably outrageous (and quite possibly fabricated) tale from his past, whilst Sophie looked on in amusement. Harry, Ron and Ginny had an in-depth Quidditch conversation for the first time in what felt like ages. Harry even managed to speculate on their seventh-year team composition and strategy without succumbing to regret.

It was all over too soon. With the remains of their repast still littering the table, Harry took it upon himself to turn the discourse towards the most pressing issue.

He stood, gaining everyone's attention. “That was brilliant; thanks for popping out to get it, Sophie, we all owe you a few quid,” he said. “All right… I've been thinking, and we can't keep sitting around here hoping something will just turn up. We're down to the cup, the snake, and something of Ravenclaw's. So let's go with that. We need a place to start looking.”

Hermione was rigid in her seat; chin raised and face pale, she began, “I would like to apologise for my failure to—”

“What? Failure?” Ron broke in, face incredulous. “Bloody hell, woman, you've been working your arse off over this!”

She flushed. “My efforts don't mean much when I haven't been able to—”

“This is not an inquisition,” Scott said evenly, cutting her off once again. “We tried the books we have, and if you couldn't find anything then the rest of us sure as shit aren't going to. It's probably not there to find.”

“So we move on,” Harry said.

“Very well,” Hermione said, subdued. Harry couldn't tell if she was convinced that the limits of her research had been reached, or if she still felt crushed by the perception that she had failed her friends in the same way her books had failed her.

“Now, we know about the snake. But even if we can find the damn thing again, Riddle is going to miss it once it's gone. So the snake probably has to be last.” Harry frowned. “That leaves us with the cup and a Ravenclaw object.”

“Can you fill me in on this cup again?” Scott requested. “What did Dumbledore say about it?”

Harry quickly ran through what little he knew of the cup, how it had been owned by Hepzibah Smith and then stolen by Riddle after he'd murdered her. “That's all we know. It could be anywhere.”

“It won't be, though, just anywhere,” Hermione said. “He's consistently chosen hiding places that are important to him.”

Scott ran his fingers over his short stubble, staring off into space. “He's compulsive. Narcissistic and compulsive, he could have used anything to make a Horcrux, right? He could have used anything and left it anywhere. Use a rock and bury it a hundred feet down in a random field. There'd be a friggin' strip mall over it by now, we wouldn't be able to find it even if he told us where to look.”

Harry was very glad that Scott hadn't been offering Voldemort any advice. “So he's arrogant, that's good for us.”

“Absolutely. I'm just trying to understand him.”

“We may not know as much as Dumbledore but, thanks to Harry, we know quite a bit,” Hermione continued. “It's a question of choosing some areas of interest.”

“Hogwarts!” Ginny supplied. “He went there, same as us. Tom would have liked to get one over on Dumbledore, too.”

“Borgin and Burkes, since he worked there,” Harry said. “Um… His father's house, maybe. Where he got his body back. And maybe somewhere in Albania.”

“Your cottage in the Hollow, Harry,” Ron said. “Though I guess you didn't see anything when you were there.”

“No, nothing,” Harry said, although he never had reached into that still water in the baby's cot… But, anyone could have run into a Horcrux there.

Hermione pursed her lips. “I don't know if he would want to commemorate a _defeat_ in that way. Albania worries me — I'd rather us not have to take such a trip. Do you know if he spent time there before he lost his corporeal form?”

“I have no idea,” Harry admitted. “He went back there again after first year, though, didn't he? There must be something about the place.”

“He's not Albanian, that's the thing. The placement of the other Horcruxes suggests he likes to keep them closer to home than that.” Hermione worried at her lower lip. “Oh, I wish we could be more certain. I would hate for us to waste time going all the way over there for nothing…”

Scott was still deep in thought, his voice slow and a bit vague. “I don't get these Horcrux things. They seem like a real Hail Mary. I mean, he spends a decade floating around down there, and the only reason he comes back is because someone went looking for him. He wasn't self-sufficient; he was just really, _really_ lucky. Think about those percentages. Those are not friendly odds. There could be a thousand other Dark wizards with Horcruxes haunting every forest from here to Tibet, waiting for someone to remember they exist, for decades, centuries, maybe longer.”

“Still better than snuffing it for real, I guess…?” Ron said, not sounding convinced of that.

“I don't see how. Anywhere else? Just get all the ideas out there, who cares if it's daft,” Harry said.

“Well…” Ginny said slowly, “Tom gave his diary to Lucius Malfoy. I don't know if he'd do it again, since it was lost and all, but it's something.”

“That's a good point,” Harry said. Not an _encouraging_ one, but still a good point. “He could give a Horcrux to someone else to keep it for him, he did it before.”

“Didn't work out,” Ginny said with an attempt at a self-deprecating smile that only rose halfway before it faltered.

Harry would have taken her hand if she hadn't been on the other side of the table. He hated the anguish the diary could still stir in her, even as he understood completely. “Doesn't mean he wouldn't try it again,” he said, wanting her to know her contribution was appreciated.

Hermione was peering intently at nothing in particular, a sure sign her brain was fully occupied. Scott was sitting directly across from her, the same expression stamped on his features; they looked as if they had been imported from an entirely different tableau. Harry had to suppress a sudden grin as he imagined the two of them had just left some international economic think tank, Apparating into Grimmauld Place in mid-thought.

Ron had caught that. “What's funny?”

“Nothing,” Harry said quietly to him. “It's… Just those two, in their own world.”

Ron gave Hermione and Scott an appraising look. “I think their worlds are two _very_ different places, mate.”

“…It's a valid concern, Ginny,” Hermione said eventually. “Unfortunately, we don't have any real information on what's happening in Riddle's inner circle.”

“We could have,” Harry said pointedly.

Hermione shot him a scathing glance. “Let it go, Harry. You should know you're through with that. And as I was _saying…_ Riddle would never use the word 'Horcrux', even among his closest followers. In fact, I doubt he'd offer any explanation at all, whoever was entrusted with the object would be expected to take it without question. But as to whether he's given any items of importance to anyone he considers loyal, we just don't know.”

“I do,” Kylie said.

The silence that followed her unexpected statement was profound. For a moment, Harry wasn't even certain that she'd actually said anything. It was the dark red blush staining her cheeks, and the way she began to hunch her shoulders, which confirmed the reality of her interjection.

Harry started to speak, but Scott beat him to it. “You know something about this?” Scott said. He flicked his eyes towards Harry, who gave him a quick nod of understanding. When it came to Kylie, it was best to let Scott handle it.

Kylie stared at the floor for a moment. And, then — although her posture remained defensive — she raised her eyes and looked at all of them, almost defiantly. “Yes.”

“How's that?”

“Something my parents said. Mother mentioned it, and F-Father…”

“They were talking about an important object? From Riddle, You-Know-Who?”

“The-e-ey were f-fighting ab-bout i-it,” she said quaveringly. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were glassy, darting from person to person over cheeks that were burning so brightly it looked painful.

In the seconds between her statement and Scott's forthcoming reply, the tremors in her limbs became increasingly violent. Every second she spent with the full attention of the room seemed to worsen her condition. Sweat appeared on her forehead and the cloth of her shirt was visibly vibrating with the thumping of her rapid heartbeat. It was when her mouth dropped open to emit ragged gasps that Harry realised he was watching the girl crumble into a full-blown panic attack.

Scott reached out and caught her by the arms as she bent at the waist. He lowered her to the floor and put his palm on her cheek, placing her head against his shoulder. “Breathe, Kylie,” he said levelly. Sophie crouched behind them, stroking Kylie's hair. “Nice and slow. There you go. Can you breathe through your nose? Here, take my arm. Squeeze as hard as you want, it won't hurt me. There you go. Just breathe.”

For a moment they all stood there and listened to Kylie struggle for breath. Harry felt terrible just for being present, and from the painfully awkward way everyone else didn't seem to know where to put their eyes, they probably felt the same way.

“So, there's this bloke who walks into a pub,” Ron said abruptly.

Harry just looked at him, before he realised what Ron was doing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He walks into the pub, right, and goes up to the tap. And he's getting his first pint, and over by the door there's this dog who's licking his balls. The bloke looks at the bartender, points at the dog and says, 'I wish I could do that'. And the bartender says, 'You should probably pet him, first'.”

Ginny snorted with laughter at the same time Hermione said, “Oh, God.”

They gathered close to the stairs and talked more quietly after that, making sure to keep their eyes off Kylie. Presumably she would recover better without all the focus on her, or at least Harry hoped so. Really, he wondered what she had been thinking. It was clear that anxiety and panic attacks resulting from being the centre of attention were nothing new to her. No doubt her predisposition for such things had only been worsened by the recent upheaval of her life. And yet, she had still spoken in front of all of them, knowing that whatever she would have to say on the subject of Horcruxes would be of extreme interest, knowing that her information could give them the clue they needed or send their quest crashing to another standstill. Not a small amount of pressure for anyone, but an _extreme_ amount for her.

…Well, she _had_ been Sorted into Gryffindor.

Kylie had been still for a few minutes when they reconvened around the table. Harry could see his own uncertainty reflected in the others; should they leave? Would Kylie have another episode if they focussed on her again? He thought that perhaps he should go upstairs, and let Scott relay whatever information Kylie had later.

But Kylie had staggered back to her feet. Steadying herself on Scott's arm, she took an uneven breath. “Th-the Dark Lord had a precious th-thing he wanted kept safe. My p-parents said they would do it, b-but he chose the mad witch instead. F-Father was really angry… He said some awful things about th-that witch and Mother was frightened she would f-find out,” she stuttered, her voice rasping and difficult to hear.

“Do you know what kind of thing it was?” Scott asked.

Kylie shook her head; several tendrils of her strawberry-blonde hair remained motionless, plastered to her forehead. “Mother said F-Father shouldn't have wanted it, even for the Dark Lord's f-favour. It was Huf-f-flepuff rubbish.”

“The cup!” Hermione gasped.

“Where did he want it kept safe?” Scott said intently.

“She put it in Gringotts,” Kylie said.

Harry heard Ron swear under his breath and felt like joining him. Anything but Gringotts…

“And he gave it to a crazy woman?” Scott asked. “What's her name?”

“I don't know,” Kylie almost whispered. “She has l-long dark hair and calls me l-little mouse.”

“Bellatrix,” Harry growled.

Scott looked over at him. “It fits.”

“Kylie, this witch — does she have sort of large eyes, heavy-lidded? Like she's always a bit sleepy?” Hermione said.

Kylie nodded.

“There's one way to be sure,” Harry said.

Beckoning to Scott and Kylie, he led the way upstairs to the Black family tapestry. The stairwell rattled with the sound of so many simultaneous footsteps. Kylie was still shaky and weak; Scott was ostensibly helping her by offering an arm to lean on, but by the halfway point he was basically carrying her.

Harry lit the drawing room and approached the tapestry, searching through the names. He pointed at Bellatrix's image, next to her sister Andromeda's scorch mark. “That's her?”

“Yes,” Kylie confirmed, and with that one simple word things had become even more complicated. “She's quite mad.”

“Yeah, she is,” Harry said grimly.

Harry heard the sofa springs squeak behind him as he stared at Bellatrix's tiny cloth visage. Everyone was settling into the drawing room rather than returning to the kitchen; a shadow passed over the tapestry as Scott leaned on the wall next to the window. Harry didn't really want to turn around because that would imply he had something to say. What could he say? He was staggered by one of the worst scenarios they had imagined: a Horcrux in Gringotts.

“Scott, tell me honestly,” he said, studying each dark thread in Bellatrix's eyes, “can you get us into Gringotts?”

“Anyone can get _in_ to a bank. It's the getting out where things start to go wrong,” Scott said.

Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. Bank robberies are easy if all you want is to get your hands on some money. Any idiot can bust in the front with an automatic and fill a bag. It's when you look at the success rates for escaping that the numbers aren't so good.”

“Have you ever been to Gringotts?”

“No. Lila has, though.”

“Well, it's not like a Muggle bank. The 'getting in' part won't be easy, either.”

“What can you tell me?”

Harry turned around, pausing to give someone else a chance to add their knowledge. But his friends were all looking to him, which he supposed made sense. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one with a personal vault. He'd been to it a few times out of necessity. Ron and Ginny usually didn't go to the bank with their parents, and, as far as Harry knew, Hermione didn't have a vault at all, only going to exchange Muggle money.

“The front entrance is this huge marble hallway with all these counters and doors on the sides. There's got to be a hundred goblins in there at any one time, maybe more. The vaults are all below, in the tunnels. I've heard they go down for miles. You use really fast mine carts to get around. Everything is protected by wards and traps, and even magical creatures. It's like a maze.”

“That doesn't sound easy,” Scott admitted. “Hermione, do you have any books on this place?”

“No. But I'll check my catalogue, I may be able to order some from Flourish and Blotts,” she said.

“Some blueprints would probably be too much to hope for,” Scott said.

“The goblins keep their secrets close, I'm afraid.”

“Bill could help,” Ginny said. “He's worked there for years now, he'd have to know a few things. You want me to write to him?”

“It has to just be him, not the Order,” Harry insisted. “I don't want anyone else to know we're looking at Gringotts.”

Ron was pale. “Bloody hell. If you'd told me we'd be thinking about stealing from Gringotts… It's supposed to be impossible!”

“That's what I've always heard,” Ginny concurred.

“Every bank wants you to think that,” Scott said.

“Yeah? And how many Muggle banks guard their vaults with dragons?” Ron said.

Scott's eyebrows shot up. “Dragons?”

“Big scaly blighters with spikes.”

“All right, so they're very dedicated to the narrative of them being impregnable.”

“Very,” Harry said, thinking of what he'd seen in Gringotts.

“But it's a well-defended building, is what it comes down to. And a wizarding bank is still a bank and they do the same kinds of things.” Scott gave Harry a serious look. “So, with that in mind, I'm pretty sure I can get us in. But unless Bill can give us access to some perfect back door, I don't think we can keep from ending up on the front page.”

That made a lot of sense. Breaking into Gringotts would already require a miracle: doing it with complete stealth was more than they could ever hope for. “So we have to do it last. But we also have to do the _snake_ last…” Harry rubbed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming on that was not scar-related.

“We'll need time to plan, anyway, the more the better. So it's not so bad,” Hermione said in an encouraging tone. “I'll put together everything I can find on Gringotts.”

“I'll write to Bill tonight,” Ginny said.

Harry sighed. “All right. Scott, I want you to look it all over before the rest of us. Give us an opinion and some options.”

Scott nodded. “Yep.”

“I know this seems like bad news, but at least we have confirmation,” Hermione was saying. “That's far better than being in the dark, and now we can—”

“Yeah, it's nice to know,” Harry interrupted her, unable to tolerate her optimistic platitudes. “But what do we do in the mean time?”

“I think we should go to Hogwarts,” Ron said. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. “Like I told Harry, school's starting soon. If we're going to look around there, now's our chance before it's full of people.”

“That's an excellent point, Ron,” Hermione said with a proud smile. The tips of Ron's ears turned red and he looked away from her.

“He's right,” Scott said.

Harry agreed; if they were going to Hogwarts there wouldn't be a better time. “If the cup is in Gringotts then we're looking for something of Ravenclaw's. I know where their tower is, but I don't know how to get in.”

“According to _Hogwarts: A History,_ the common rooms are accessible year round,” Hermione said.

“Let's not make things harder for ourselves. We're looking for a Ravenclaw artefact in the Ravenclaw part of Hogwarts, so let's get a Ravenclaw,” Scott said.

“Luna?” Harry surmised.

“Any objections?”

Harry had been very careful about giving away anything related to the Horcruxes, but he felt he could trust Luna implicitly. And she didn't have to know exactly what they were looking for to help them. “No, I think she'll be good to have.”

Hermione nodded easily, obviously having her own level of trust in Luna. “It's not a bad idea.”

“I'll work this out with Lil. Meanwhile, think about how we want to do this,” Scott said. “I doubt the school will be completely empty.”


	20. Erebus Tau Alpha

**20**

**Erebus Tau Alpha**  

\---

 _“Strategy is the art of knowing what you have._  
 _Logistics is the art of getting what you need._  
 _My art is called filching: I get what you need,_  
 _but aren't supposed to have.”_  


                        —Technician Patrick Bennet, Transversal Station  
                        Primarius Quartermaster

\---

Neville squinted against the sunlight coming in through the kitchen window as he tried to understand what he was doing wrong. The plant which was the source of his frustration was, from all that he had read, supposed to do quite well indoors. That was why he had chosen it to add a little colour to the kitchen. But it hadn't grown at all, so far as he could tell. Despite the ample lighting and frequent watering, it remained small and pale. He felt slightly insulted that the plant wasn't thriving. He was quite good with plants; it should know that. All of his other plants were cooperative.

He was just about to fetch one of his books when a loud knock at the door startled him. Gran was out, but, it couldn't be her, she'd used the Floo. Visitors were rare at the Longbottom Estate. No one ever knocked on the door.

The highly unusual nature of the situation warranted caution. Neville pulled his wand from his pocket and approached the door with apprehension knotting his stomach. The wards on the property were old and strong, and he doubted anyone could have forced through them without making a great deal of noise. But he wasn't going to heedlessly throw the door open on a supposition.

There was a swinging latch on the door which opened a small glass window; he peered through it and saw a blonde woman looking coolly back at him. He leaned away in surprise, and then opened the door.

“Um… Lila?” he said slowly. He hadn't seen the woman for a while, and, to the best of his memory, she'd never sought him out before.

Her gaze was serious. “Neville.”

“What is it?” he asked, his stomach knotting again in the face of her demeanour. He hoped with all his might that nothing had happened to any of his friends.

“You're needed,” Lila said.

Neville stood up straight, shocked and delighted. “All right!” He started to step out, and then paused. “Do I need to get anything?”

“Change of clothes, if you want.”

He rushed upstairs and threw the first sets of clothing he could grab into his empty book bag. On the way back down he thought of Gran, and quickly scribbled out a note for her, some nonsense about going school shopping with friends. Not the best excuse, and she wouldn't be happy, but he couldn't delay. He was needed.

Outside, a Muggle vehicle was parked on the cobblestones of the front garden path. Neville winced: his house hadn't been designed for Muggle access, and he hoped the contraption wasn't so heavy it would do any damage. Lila slid into the front and he stopped, unsure of what he was expected to do. Should he follow her in?

Lila, seeing his uncertainty, climbed back out and opened a door on the rear of the car. “I think you'll want to sit in the back,” she said with a knowing smile.

Neville didn't know what she meant by that, but he gratefully ducked into the opening. It was larger on the inside than he'd expected, and had an odd, rubbery odour to it that he'd never smelled before. It wasn't all that unpleasant, just strange.

“Hello, Neville,” a dreamy voice to his left said.

He was so startled that he sent his book bag flying up towards Lila, who deftly batted it out of the air and into the empty seat next to her. He turned to see Luna, her wild blonde tresses fluttering gently in the cool air that blew from the vents. Her smile was wide and bright and just for him.

“Luna!” Neville breathed. “When did… How did you…”

Luna reached down and did something with the seat that made a 'click'; the strap that ran from the ceiling across her body slid away and she scooted over to the middle section of the seat. As she fastened a new strap over her middle, Neville leaned in closer, feeling her heat. He knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. She looked (and smelled) amazing.

“Have you been well?” she asked, placing a hand on his knee.

It had been less than a month since they'd seen each other at the wedding, but it felt like forever. Neville didn't care that Lila was sitting right in front of him; he bent down and captured Luna's mouth. Any fears that he'd been a bit too forward were extinguished when she kissed him back with equal fervour.

“Good grief,” Lila muttered.

Neville pulled away from Luna with a jolt when the vehicle started to move. “Where are we going?” he wondered.

“Birmingham,” Lila said. “I'll be leaving you there with the others.”

Neville's eyes widened. “So this… We're—”

“On a mission. You've been drafted.”

“Um, all right,” he said, having no idea what a 'mission' would entail but totally unwilling to be left out of it.

“Quite exciting, isn't it?” Luna enthused.

It was, though the way she was pressed up against him left Neville with a different sort of excitement in mind. “Y-yeah,” he said, noticing how her shirt stretched tightly across her chest.

When Luna turned her head to look directly at him they were so close together her nose almost bumped his. “Birmingham is a bit far away. Would you like to keep me occupied?” she said with a hungry sort of tone.

“I'll think of something…” he said faintly, leaning into her involuntarily.

“Here's what I'm going to do,” Lila said loudly, gaining their attention. “I'm going to turn the radio on and try to pretend you aren't back there. So don't do something I can't ignore, all right?”

Neville felt his face flood with heat. “R-right.”

“Mind your hands, then, Neville,” Luna sighed regretfully.

It took awhile for Neville to become accustomed to riding in the car. The motions of it seemed unnatural, so smooth compared to the carriages at Hogwarts. By the time they were speeding northward on the motorway it had ceased to be disorienting. That was good, since with Luna wrapped around him like some kind of hot-blooded blonde eel, he didn't want any distractions. Their brief time apart had apparently left her craving his touch as much as he did hers, an idea which left him gobsmacked when he thought about it. How could she possibly want him the way he wanted her? He wasn't that great, and she was _Luna_.

He tried to be mindful of Lila a few feet away, divided from them as she was by a single seat, but the moment Luna thrust her tongue into his mouth was the moment he forgot the rest of the world existed. Fortunately they had to stay 'buckled in', as Lila had said, referring to the straps that held them to the seat. This prevented Luna from climbing on top of him (as her constant wriggling seemed to indicate she was trying to), a position which would lead to him having to cast a Scouring Charm whilst doing his best to avoid explaining why.

She tasted wonderful and smelled even better, and the warm silk of her skin was driving him absolutely mental, he couldn't hold her close enough.  He couldn't go another month without her, that was certain. Although, if it meant another reunion like this…

“You guys might want to tone it down, you're starting to turn me on,” Lila commented.

Luna leaned back, her face flushed and her lips swollen. Her wide silvery eyes were even more languid than usual. “Did you want her to watch?” she asked.

Neville blanched. “Not really.”

“Me, neither,” Luna said. She regretfully slid her hands down from where they had been buried in his hair, letting them linger on his shoulders. “May I have a hug?”

He really didn't know what she was thinking, sometimes. About eighty percent of her body had just been pressed against him. “Whenever you want.”

In the calmer aftermath of Lila's interruption he found his eyelids sinking lower, lured downwards by the soothing warmth of Luna's body heat and the sweet scent of her hair as it tickled his nose, his cheek resting on top of her head. The road rumbled beneath the tyres in a steady drone that mixed with the radio. Luna had quickly become lax in his arms, drifting into sleep. She was probably tired; given the distance from her house to Neville's, and the fact it was only then approaching noon, she must have been up quite early.

He hadn't even realised he had followed her example until he found himself suddenly staring into a pair of amused grey eyes, his forehead stinging from where it had been flicked.

“Rise and shine,” Lila drawled. “Your next chariot awaits.”

Neville gently shook Luna awake and pushed himself out of the car. He found himself in a paved lot next to a narrow street, a two-storey brick building across it and houses down the way. Nearby was a larger Muggle vehicle painted a dull grey — standing around it were Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and a tall blond man.

Neville grinned and hurried forward to greet them. “Hey, you lot! What's this about a mission?”

“Nev, glad you could make it,” the blond man said.

“Hello, Scott,” Luna said, yawning. “You've grown taller. Did you mean to?”

“It was intentional, yes.”

Neville's mouth dropped open. He took a few steps closer and stared. It was unmistakable: the blond man was Scott. “How did you…” He trailed off and closed his mouth, embarrassed. It had been implied, along with all the other information the Kharadjai had shared, that Scott had always been older. It was just a shock to see. “…So this is really you, yeah?”

“This is me, as I am,” Scott said grandly.

“Disappointing, isn't it?” Ron said.

“Good to see you, Nev,” Harry said warmly. “You too, Luna.”

“Good to be here,” Neville said, not really caring whether he had a basis to believe so. He was just ecstatic not to be left out.

“Yes, all we Primes, together again. Scott must be beside himself,” Hermione said dryly.

Scott was leaning into the opened side door of the large grey motor, rustling sounds emanating from within. “Nev, Luna, come over here. Let me get you up to speed before we take off.”

They all gathered around Scott as he pulled a map from the vehicle and held it out. Harry took one corner and Ginny the other, stretching it taut. Neville wasn't sure what he was looking at. Some of the places were familiar, but it was all a bunch of lines and letters. He didn't recognise much but the coasts and cities.

“We're here: Birmingham.” Scott placed his finger on the city. “Off Burlington Street. Philips Street Park is right behind this building. And we're going…” He drew an invisible line northward, ending in Scotland. “…To Hogwarts.”

Neville felt a bit let down. He had expected a more exotic destination. “Why not just Apparate, then?”

“We can't, not directly onto the grounds. Not into Hogsmeade anymore, either, or so we've heard,” Hermione explained.

Harry nodded. “It's an area we know, and they know it. So we're going to take our time and do this the Muggle way.”

“It's been hard to stay hidden,” Ginny said to Luna. “We've had to do things differently.”

“All right, makes sense, but why Hogwarts?” Neville wanted to know.

Harry hesitated. “…I'll try to explain more as we go.”

Scott rolled up the map. “We'll stop on the way out of town so everyone can go to the bathroom, because we're going to be headed up the M6 for almost eight hours and I am not pulling over thirty minutes in because you didn't feel like taking a piss at McDonald's, _Hermione.”_

“It's not hygienic!” she asserted.

“You've got an immune system. At least, you'd better. All right, load it up!” Scott slapped the top of the van and went around to hop up into the driver's seat.

“Shotgun!” Harry called out, running forward to claim the second seat at the front of the vehicle.

“So you get that seat just because you keep saying that? What is this ruddy game?” Ron grumbled, climbing into the back.

Harry paused with his hand on the door frame. “Not my fault you didn't pay attention,” he said in a superior tone.

“Reload,” Scott said.

“Shotgun!!” Hermione blurted.

“Shot—… Oh, _what…”_ Harry whinged.

With Hermione smugly ensconced in the passenger seat they drove off, briefly stopping to relieve themselves at a restaurant (and Hermione had been correct, the loo at McDonald's was _not_ hygienic). As the scenery flashed by, Harry told Neville and Luna about the mission in very general terms. He was clearly omitting more than he was saying, which was a bit of a let down. Neville had hoped that he and Luna had been 'drafted' in the complete sense, finally allowed to participate in whatever Harry and others had been up to.

Harry's explanation was so vague that by the time he was finished about the only thing that was clear was that they were looking for something.

Neville frowned. “But what is it? How will we know if we find it?”

“We'll know,” Harry said firmly. “Luna, we think this object has something to do with Ravenclaw. Have you ever heard anything about that? Like, old Ravenclaw artefacts?”

“Well, Lisa Turpin is mysteriously missing several pairs of knickers. She loses more each year. I told her it was Nicking Numbees, but she never did put up the correct charms to ward them off,” Luna said thoughtfully. “Also, there's the Lost Diadem.”

“You should look for the knickers, Harry, you're quite good at spotting those,” Ginny said with a wicked smile.

“Awwwwww yeaaaahhhhh,” Scott crowed from the front.

“Er — the diadem thing sounds like a good lead, tell me about that,” Harry said hurriedly, perhaps noting the look of horror on Ron's face.

“It's lost,” Luna clarified.

“Right. It's lost, but… anything else?”

“They say it grants whoever wears it great wisdom. It also looks quite nice with a ball gown.”

“How do you know that? Maybe it's really old and ugly,” Ginny said.

“I've always thought it looked lovely on her statue.”

“There's a statue of it? Is that in your common room?” Harry asked. When Luna nodded, he said, “Okay, we should look at that.”

“Maybe we could talk to Flitwick,” Scott said loudly, turning his head so they could hear him over the constant hum of the car.

“Oh! What about the Grey Lady?” Hermione said, craning her neck in a similar fashion. “Although, I don't know if she'll speak to us… I've never heard her say a word.”

“She talks to Ravenclaws,” Luna said. “She helped me find my books when I misplaced them.”

“Did you misplace them, or did someone _take_ them?” Neville said, angrily remembering the many times Luna's housemates had stolen from her.

Luna looked at him, her gaze uncommonly serious. “It's all right, Neville. That was last year.”

“I don't care what year it was. People shouldn't take things from you.”

Luna said nothing, staring at him. Then she laid her head on his shoulder and threaded her fingers through his.

“…Well,” Harry said awkwardly into the following silence, “good thing we have you then, Luna. You can ask the Grey Lady about the diadem.”

“What's the difference between a diadem and a tiara?” Ginny wondered. “I know what a tiara looks like.”

“Never been clear on that,” Scott said. “Also, if you want to talk to a grey lady, Hermione about fits the bill. Looking a little off colour there, Herms.”

“A touch of motion sickness,” Hermione said faintly. She was indeed looking a bit grey.

“You need to stop turning to look at the back, that's your problem.”

Harry chuckled triumphantly. Hermione heard him, and risked additional nausea by giving him a cutting glare.

“Crack the window,” Scott said. “Or just stick your head out, like a dog.”

“What a flattering comparison,” Hermione muttered. She rolled the window down a few inches and leaned against it.

Neville spent the first hour or so of the trip trying to get a sense of what he had missed. After the escape from the wedding, he had returned home and hadn't done much but write to Luna for some time — he'd been wondering if any of the Death Eaters had recognised his opposition to them. Luna's hair, especially, was memorable enough that he worried for her. His warnings to Gran had gone unheeded as she'd done her shopping and attended social gatherings as usual. He supposed that was the privilege of being a well-known pure-blood. The Death Eaters seemed reluctant to go after a family as established as the Longbottoms.

Neville wasn't naïve enough to think that wouldn't change if he was seen with Harry — he just didn't care. He had already decided that, once the current 'mission' was concluded, he would be asking if he could stay on as part of Harry's team. He'd probably be refused, and he knew he wasn't all that useful, but he felt compelled to try.

His questions met a lot of dead ends, but slowly he put together a picture of a task left to Harry that was so dangerous, even the deceased Headmaster's own Order knew nothing of it. Harry had kept that duty close, sharing it only with a very select few, and together they had been doing their best to fulfil it. Perhaps Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted Neville to know the secret, which was fine. He just wanted to help, and he didn't have to know the details behind what he was asked to do.

The conversation was sporadic after that. Most of the talk faded away after the first hour. Neville watched the scenery roll by as Luna slept on his shoulder again; it didn't take him long to get tired of the interchangeable pastiches. There wasn't a whole lot to see, really, outside of the towns. Everything sort of looked the same from a car window, he was discovering. He was actually a bit proud of how quickly he had become accustomed to the Muggle transport; he didn't even hit his head when he clambered out with the others at the three hour mark, having stopped to stretch their legs and use the toilet.

The petrol station was a strange berth for Muggle motors, smelling strongly of rubber and something extremely acrid and unfamiliar. The roars of other vehicles whipped by on the road behind them: deep-pitched approach, loud crescendo, and then yowling high as they faded away. There were lights everywhere, multicoloured, shining down on pitted artificial surfaces, gleaming off stained metal, illuminating cracks in the walk. It was utterly alien, a neon island in a steel river.

“Where are we?” Luna said sleepily, looking blearily about.

“Carlisle,” Scott said. “You all get a tenner for the store, put your hands out if you want it. Don't stand back, Harry, everybody likes money.”

“If he thinks he's better than us, I'll take his share,” Ron graciously offered.

“I'm his girlfriend so I should get his,” Ginny declared.

Harry pushed past them and claimed his note. “I'll pay you back after we rob Gringotts,” he told Scott.

“Put it in writing,” Scott said, leading the way into the shop.

Neville was utterly lost amid all the shiny plastic packages and endless advertisements of the small shop, so he kept his flimsy paper money in his pocket and followed Luna as she gathered an armload of seemingly random items. He wasn't sure she understood how much money she actually had or what the things she was buying were, though she gravitated toward whatever had the brightest wrapping. When she hauled it all up to the counter, Neville placed his own money on top of hers, just to be safe.

The next hour was spent passing around their purchases, eating a wide assortment of food and washing it all down with bottled water. An hour after that, Neville was deep in an involved discussion with Luna (meaning she talked and he listened) about the theoretical migratory patterns of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Once that topic was exhausted, he listened in to what was happening up front — Hermione had begun to bother Scott for information.

“Is it really too much to ask for a bit more about you?” she was saying stridently. “You've long since abandoned your guise as a new student. I really don't see why you insist on remaining so secretive.”

“Force of habit,” he said nonchalantly.

“That's not much of an excuse. I hope you realise that.”

“And what, exactly, do you want to know?” he said irritatedly.

“How do your portals work?”

“We've been over this. Nobody knows how they work.”

“All right… But, why can't _we_ use them?”

“You're not a Kharadjai. It's very difficult to move anything with significant mass through an aperture, especially when you can't hold it open for yourself. There's a low-percent chance an aperture wouldn't collapse the second you touched it, but that's for the best, since if you _did_ manage to get through that would be very bad.”

“Why?”

“You're a Prime. In moving through the aperture, there would be a period of time when you technically weren't in the universe. It's a fraction of a millisecond, but that's still a fraction of a millisecond in which the shape considers you dead.”

Hermione nodded sagely, apparently comprehending Scott's point even as Neville was lost. “Best not to force it, then.”

“The odds of you successfully going through an aperture are low enough that I'm not going to worry about it, but I'm also not going to let you try.”

“That's stupid,” Harry said. “We could have gone anywhere, otherwise.”

“Not anywhere I haven't already been,” Scott said.

Harry frowned. “Bollocks. You went right to the cave with us, how could you have been there before?”

“Dumbledore had, and I followed him.”

“Interesting. If a Death Eater were to Disapparate away, could you chase them?” Hermione asked.

Scott pushed himself straighter in his seat, whipping his head from side to side and getting a few pops for his effort. “Probably not if I didn't know them. Maybe if it was Snape. Maybe.”

“Are you going to be fine driving the whole way?” Hermione asked him, noticing his discomfort.

“It's not that far. And who else is going to do it?”

Hermione pursed her lips. “I suppose I might…”

“No, no,” Ron said immediately. “This is already scary enough.”

“I could learn!” she said defensively.

“Yeah, but… This really isn't the _time_ , you know?” Scott said.

“Fine!” she huffed, crossing her arms. “See if I show any concern for you again.”

“She's mental if she thinks I'll ride with her steering,” Ron said to Harry. “You remember what she's like on a broom?”

Ginny shuddered. “We'd die. I know we would.”

“I can hear you!” Hermione called out.

“Good,” Ron yelled back, “then you know you're mental if you think—”

“I heard you the first time!”

Their argument quickly picked up steam after that. Neville did his best to ignore their squabbling, but it was rather difficult in such close quarters. Luna looked unbothered as she nibbled at some bright orange crisps.

“Those any good?” he asked her. She held the bag out for him and he popped one into his mouth. A few seconds after swallowing, he realised his throat was on fire. “Bloody hell!” he choked, reaching for a half-full bottle of water nearby.

“They're delicious,” Luna said serenely, crunching through another one.

After the pain subsided, he thought about the flavour and realised they _were_ good. He had another, then a few more, and after about half the bag was gone he was eating them with almost the same ease as Luna. He'd never had much in the way of spicy foods before and was encouraged by his ability to handle it. He hadn't known that about himself.

Outside, evening was tinting the sky. They wouldn't arrive at Hogwarts until after dark.

***---~**~---***  

Harry was pleased with himself: at the last stop of the journey he had managed to catch Hermione unaware (she had been dozing, and was still half-asleep at the petrol station). When they resumed the drive, he was in the front passenger seat. The victory was a bit hollow, however, as she hadn't really seemed to mind. Having Ron to lie against probably had a lot to do with that.

More than that, his self-satisfaction was rapidly dimming in the face of fear-laced anticipation as Hogwarts grew ever closer. It would be about an hour before they arrived. He knew the plan and the terrain, but the opposition remained unknown. There could be anything waiting for them at Hogwarts, and it was that thought which troubled him most. He had the Map, sure, but there were a few places that it didn't show (at least one from which they had been attacked before). And there was no telling who might be at Hogsmeade.

But since he couldn't _do_ anything about it, he tried to distract himself (perhaps sitting away from Ginny hadn't been the best idea). To that end, he had tried to engage Scott in lighter conversation, but it seemed like everything they spoke about inevitably turned towards darker subjects.

“You think they'll be waiting for us?” Harry said.

Scott adjusted the rear view mirror and squinted at it; no matter how long the trip went on, he continued to closely examine the other cars on the motorway. “No. If anything, this little excursion has proven just how removed from the Muggle world wizards really are.”

Harry could see the truth in that. “I've never eaten at McDonald's before.”

“That has less to do with being a wizard and more to do with your asshole relatives,” Scott said dryly.

“It was all right,” Harry said, loathe to dig into his past with the Dursleys.

“It's a hard place to recommend. But it's cheap, and it's everywhere.”

“How much do you think they're looking for me?”

“Depends on the day. Depends on Riddle's mood, probably. He'll hand out a few Cruciatus, everyone will get real busy, and then when he gets distracted they don't try so much.” Scott shrugged. “You gotta remember, they think you're just hiding. If they think you're under a Fidelius somewhere — which, you are — then there's a definite sense of futility to the hunt.”

“Didn't help my parents any,” Harry said quietly.

“Pettigrew came forward. He volunteered. Kind of undermines the whole system. I don't see anyone back there betraying the charm, do you?” Scott jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Although, hindsight is everything. Your parents certainly didn't see it coming.”

Harry greatly resented the implication. “That's not true. They just suspected the wrong person,” he said, thinking of Remus.

“Who do you suspect?”

“You,” Harry said sarcastically.

“I'm not even a Secret Keeper,” Scott scoffed.

“Oh yeah? How do I know you didn't just make yourself one when you changed the spell?”

Scott frowned thoughtfully. “I might have if I knew how. I still can't tell the difference between Secret Keepers and clients. The threads all look the same.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really. Call it professional curiosity.”

Harry watched as a farm went by, all green fields, white wooden buildings and low stone walls. He thought it might be nice to live somewhere like that, perhaps because it reminded him of The Burrow. “So, when we get there… You think you can find any Horcruxes yourself?”

“I don't know. The locket was definitely magical, but not in a unique way I could know as a Horcrux without digging into it. And despite everything, it was not a lit Priority Object. Which honestly doesn't surprise me that much. It's rare when the universe points something out for you.”

“So even when we had it on the table, you couldn't tell for sure,” Harry said.

“I could tell it was doing _something_ , but that was after it was active. But I'm not sure what the wizarding world considers a 'soul'. Stuff like that usually falls under the deep shape.”

Harry had never heard that term before. “ _Deep_ shape?”

“Oh, boy. You just opened a can of worms. Okay…” Scott pushed his shoulders back into his seat, stretching his neck again. “The shape is a reflection of existence. It's alive because we are and it's complex because reality is. But what we see of it is only the surface. Imagine the shape as an ocean. You swim on the top, and below… below, it gets real dark. Anything could be happening down there.”

“But you always talk about the shape as being all around you, like… not flat.”

Scott grimaced. “Yeah, just, I'm really reaching for an analogy. Okay, new one — and this one will work. Imagine a piece of string. One end is tied to a post, the other is tied to a second post. Two posts, one connection. You look at it and say, 'okay, this string is connected to these two posts'. Maybe you take another string and tie it around your wrist and then to one of the posts. If you get lost, you can follow the string back. That's integration: you build your own connections. You really only see what you're connected to, _through_ the things you're connected to, and that's the barest fraction of the whole.

“Now… These two posts are in a forest, the biggest forest ever. And everything that exists in this forest is tied with string. There are threads everywhere, connecting everything. If you look at one of those strings more closely, you'll see it's not just a single piece, it's several strings twisted together. Get even closer — more strands, infinitely smaller, tangled tight to make bigger ones. Everything is made of something which is made of something which is made of something.

“The shape we see… It's infinite. But it's still _macro._ The deep shape is beyond our ability to perceive. The Liberi glimpse it, and it makes them crazy. Or they have to be crazy in the first place, whatever you believe. There are entire libraries of speculation on what the deep shape could tell us. Who we are as Kharadjai, why we have the abilities we do. How the Multiverse really works. What the human soul is, if there is such a thing. I'm good with the shape in a way not many people are. And I'm just paddling around the shallows, wondering what's out in the dark water. I switched analogies again, god _dammit._ Ugh… Well, most people can't swim.”

“Like me?” Harry said.

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Hey, I can swim,” Harry said, stretching the truth a bit. He'd done all right with Gillyweed, but a handful of occasions spent at the lake in the summertime had proven he wasn't much of a swimmer. Prior to going to Hogwarts, the closest he'd ever come to a body of water was the bathtub.

“You can _swim_ , or you can just not drown?”

“I don't know, something in between. I didn't say I was great at it. I swam at the cave, didn't I?”

“Not really. We were sort of pulling ourselves through. It's not swimming when you've got a wall and floor to push off of.”

“I swam some,” Harry muttered. “What does it matter? Are you going to crash us into a river?”

“Too early to say.”

“Yeah, well… Don't.” Harry squinted against the last sliver of the setting sun, watching the layered hues fade across the horizon. Before leaving Grimmauld they had considered the time table for the day, calculating how long it would take to drive. It turned out to be significantly longer than it took for the Hogwarts Express to go even further, direct from London. Lack of traffic wouldn't account for all of the differential. Obviously, the train was magical; Harry had always known that it must have been, everything related to Hogwarts was, but hadn't really put much thought into it.

The cover of night would both cloak them from enemy eyes and ensure that the castle itself would be mostly empty. They were counting on the castle's protections being the same as they were during the school year, especially as they were so close to the start of the term; once Scott bypassed the powerful outer wards, they should be able to move about freely, like usual. The Marauder's Map would provide all the information needed to go undetected, if it were at all possible.

Harry glanced over at Scott, wondering if the Kharadjai was thinking similar thoughts now that the school was near. The trees outside were beginning to look familiar in their shapes and patterns. But if Scott was worried, it didn't show.

“Could be anything out there,” Harry said, trying to gauge if that bothered Scott. No reaction. “…But I guess this isn't much to you, huh.”

Scott shrugged. “Not entirely.”

“Why's that? I thought you'd seen it all,” Harry said, only partially mocking.

“Terrorists and corruption, sure. But, here's the thing: look at similar people, like Pemuda Pancasila, Colombian coke armies, the IRA, the Shining Path, Pinochet, the whoever whatever. The Nazis, if we're going back to that well. Very bad people, all across the board, but very human, also.”

“There's nothing human about the Nazis,” Hermione said strongly, apparently having been listening in.

Scott sighed. “You are so very wrong, but that sort of plays into our unspoken yet eternal argument concerning the fundamental nature of man.” Hermione made a disgruntled sound, which Scott disregarded as he continued, “The thing that separates Riddle's new order here, is the… the _lustlessness_ of his aesthetic. I don't know how else to put it… The IRA, they'd go to a pub, they get shitfaced, they go home and fuck their wives or their girlfriends or both, tuck their kids into bed, and then get up the next day and bomb a church. The Nazis? The Nazis knew how to party. And in the end it's all about the reality or at least the illusion of power, but Riddle has somehow — and maybe it's the Dark magic? — has somehow stripped his starter empire of that Beer, Guns and Pussy ethos. They don't act like a paramilitary, or a death squad. They act like people expect evil wizards to act like in the movies. I mean, who's ever heard of a terrorist insurgency composed of the cultural _elite?”_

“It is the magic, or at least parts of it. The parts we're after,” Hermione said. “Riddle is achieving immortality through inhumanity. _Literal_ inhumanity. It's not an ethos in the typical sense.”

Harry remembered the way Riddle looked at the Department: red eyes, slitted nostrils and chalk-white skin. He had become a Dark monster by choice. “He doesn't look human, that's for sure.”

“Most of the guys I mentioned were all about rape,” Scott said. “In between the killing. I know some Death Eaters have dabbled in the area, mostly with Muggles. It doesn't seem to be one of Riddle's core tenets, at least. I don't know if he'll bother to curb the impulse in his men, but perhaps the further they all take this Dark crap the less they'll care about it.”

“I can't say if there's ever been any studies concerning the effects of Dark magic on libido… I rather doubt it, but I hope you're right,” Hermione said.

Harry felt sick. He had known, in a very general way, that the Death Eaters might indulge in such behaviour, but hadn't wanted to think about it. He didn't know if he could stand having that on his conscience as well. “Why would they do that to Muggles or Muggle-born if they're all about blood purity?”

“Because ideals last right up until they have a helpless person at hand. More to the point, they would have to not be a hypocrite. Have you met a lot of pure-blood bigots with that quality?” Scott said.

“But… I…” Harry struggled with the idea. He couldn't see how it could possibly appeal. “Why would you want that? I mean… It couldn't be any good for _you,_ either… could it?”

Scott shook his head. “You don't understand because you're confusing rape with sex. Rape is about violence and power, not traditional arousal. It's 'good' for the rapist in a way that's not related to how sex is good for the participants.”

Harry slumped back into his seat, deeply uncomfortable with the concept. “I still don't get it.”

“Me, neither,” Ron said from somewhere in back.

“Yeah, because you guys don't get off on subjugation and torture. Not a bad thing, unless you're planning an audition for Riddle,” Scott said.

“He tried to recruit my mum and dad. He'd kill me if I walked up and told him I wanted to join, the Prophecy guarantees that,” Harry mused.

“You'd never join him, even if there weren't a Prophecy,” Ginny said, her voice floating out of the dark. Sometime during the conversation the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the only illumination came from lights in the dashboard. It would have made Harry sleepy if he weren't so tense.

“Thanks, Gin,” he said, appreciating the vote of confidence.

“Unless he offered treacle tart,” Ron added much less helpfully.

“Now, Harry would never abandon his principles… for only one serving,” Hermione chimed in.

“Are you hearing this?” Harry said to Scott. “Apparently they've confused me and treacle tart with you and bacon.”

“Ah, but different approaches, Harry. Different approaches,” Scott said easily. “If Riddle offered me bacon, I'd kill him and take the bacon.”

The next half hour felt like a century, and then Scott pulled the vehicle off onto a dirt road that wound through woods that were heavy with a familiar foreboding dark. Not quite the Forbidden Forest, not yet… but definitely adjacent. The MPV shook with every bump, rattling the passengers. Harry winced when his teeth clacked together and kept his mouth firmly shut after that. When they started driving over roots, he nearly smacked his head against the window.

They rolled to a stop at the edge of a grassy field, and Harry could see lights in the distance. He knew it was Hogsmeade; any Muggles who had taken the same off-road journey would have seen nothing at all. The town was a glittering island on the horizon, beckoning the way across a rustling, unquiet sea of darkness. It was a landmark and a warning.

“That wasn't good for the shocks,” Scott grunted as he shut off the engine. He reached up and hit the lights on the ceiling. “Everybody out. Hermione, got your bag? Good. Harry, your stuff is in the glove box.”

Harry jumped out of his door and reached back inside to get a small case from the glove box. He opened it and looked nervously at the contents. “Damn. Scott, give me a hand with these, would you? I barely know what I'm doing.”

“Barely? Or not at all?” Scott took the case from Harry. “Where's the bottle? Get the bottle.”

After retrieving the bottle, Harry watched carefully as Scott prepared the contact lenses. “So you put those drops in them first?”

“It helps. You don't always have to. Can you do this? Put it on the tip of your finger. Now just— no, look at it, not me. Stop looking at me! Look at the contact! You want to centre it. Now press it in, gently.”

Harry paused, the contact millimetres from his eyeball. “Am I on it right?”

Scott sighed. “Just give it here. Pull your eyelids apart. Now hold still, look straight ahead. Pick a spot.”

“Er…” Harry involuntarily leaned away as Scott's finger grew uncomfortably close.

“Don't be a pussy. Hold still.”

Harry barely stopped himself from cringing at the incredibly unpleasant sensation of pressure on his eyeball. Then Scott's finger went away, leaving behind a strange feeling of something cool and sort of squishy in his eye, like he'd got pudding in it. “Ugh.”

“Blink a few times. Close your other eye, is it good?”

“I guess…” Harry kept blinking, his vision blurry from excess fluid.

“Other one. Gaze into the abyss, there we go…”

Harry blinked rapidly and carefully wiped at the edges of his eyes. “God, now I'm crying. Look at me.” He blinked, and wiped, and blinked a bit more, and then when he raised his head and looked back at Scott…

Clarity.

“Wow…” he breathed, staring at the other man. “Your face is so _detailed…”_

“Quit staring at my pores,” Scott rebuked. “Look around, how is it?”

It was amazing. He had forgotten how crisp and elaborate the world was, how sharp the colours. It was funny how he could cease to realise things like that, over time. His glasses prescription had changed before, back in fifth year at Remus' behest, but his eyes hadn't been looked at since. Sophie had produced some sort of portable optometry apparatus after he'd asked about the possibility of contacts (and she had been highly reluctant to explain even the simplest things about the way the device functioned, perhaps indicating it wasn't something from the Muggles).

He walked over to the rear of the people-carrier, where the others had gathered whilst Hermione sorted through her beaded handbag. Everyone looked tense and pale. He stepped into the light next to Ginny.

“Well?” he said, pausing for her perusal.

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, _Harry…”_

He shifted uncomfortably. “Weird, yeah?”

She stared at him, her bright brown eyes and flaming hair more beautiful than ever before with their newly gained definition. She put her hands on either side of his head, bringing his face down closer to hers.

“…Right, that's it,” she said after a moment of mutual gazing. “You aren't allowed to go out without your glasses where other girls can see you.”

He grinned in relief: she didn't hate it. “It's just for missions. I don't care for sticking things in my eyeballs.”

“Is it bad?” she said with concern.

“It doesn't hurt, it's just… odd.” He glanced away from Ginny to see the others all examining him as well.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Ron said.

“Henry Porter,” Harry said laconically.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Remind me to invent a pseudonym for you if you need one. Goodness, Harry, I've hardly seen you without your glasses. Have your eyes always been that green? Those contacts aren't coloured, I assume.”

“No. Ron said Ginny would kill me.”

Ginny gave him a hard look. “If you ever change your eyes I'll… Well, I'll kill you. Like Ron said.”

“You look really different without the glasses, mate,” Neville said.

“I guess I _do,_ huh,” Harry said, still a bit surprised by the reactions. He supposed that was a natural result of wearing the same glasses for most of his life. “There goes my public image.”

“I wouldn't expect anonymity,” Hermione cautioned.

“I know. Not with this still around.” Harry tapped a finger on his scar.

“You don't look _that_ different, mate,” Ron said. “Still the same scrawny git.”

“What a relief.”

Scott came up behind them. He had changed into his fatigues and was practically bristling with weapons and ammunition. “All set?” he asked, slapping a loaded magazine for his carbine into the palm of his hand. When no one said anything to the contrary, he slid the magazine into the receiver and pulled back the handle above the stock. Harry watched a long, pointed bullet briefly pop into view behind the ejection port before the bolt slammed into place. “Okay. Wands out, eyes open.”

“Right,” Harry said, drawing his wand. “Let's see how Hogwarts is doing without us.”


	21. What Is Gone Shall Be Forgotten

**21**

**What Is Gone Shall Be Forgotten**

\--- 

_“There is no empirical evidence in favor  
of the existence of the human soul. All  
known sciences, every rational discipline  
and our total knowledge of the coherent  
physical universe, in their collective sum,  
have provided not a single iota of proof  
or entailment that the soul is real, or  
that something similar in working, but  
technically distinct, is extant. This  
is a very interesting point of fact,  
rife with implication.  
  
Equally interesting, and portentous, is  
the utter lack of evidence that the soul  
does **not** exist. And whereas the argument  
against lacks inferences, other universes,  
and the shape itself, imply a great deal  
about the possibility of the soul. But,  
as is often the case, the same word  
may mean many varied things. Thus, the  
soul continues to exist somewhere  
between superstition and science.”  
_

—Dr. Albrecht Kresser, Foreword to _Modern Science  
Periodical’s_ _Collected Theorems Volume CXIV_  

\--- 

As the clouds rolled overhead, they followed the edge of the Forest where it met the field. They stayed in the area where the trees were thinner and the brush didn’t fight them quite so much, away from the dark boundary where the branches closed in overhead and the Forest truly began.

Harry kept himself at the edge of the group, closest to the Forest. It was a pointless enough gesture that he knew he was only doing it to assuage his sense of protective duty. Scott also trod near the dangerous border, and if there were any creatures moving behind the curtain of darkness the Kharadjai would see them long before anyone else did.

Hermione stopped up ahead. “Scott!” she whispered, gesturing frantically. Scott hurried forward and crouched next to her. “What is that?” she said, pointing.

Scott peered in the direction she’d indicated, then leaned back. “I think it’s part of a tree.”

Harry couldn’t see Hermione’s face, but her posture was embarrassed. “Oh,” she said.

“When in doubt, point it out. Silhouettes are tricky in the moonlight.”

What little of it there was. The clouds overhead blocked out most of the stars, and Hogsmeade — its lights dim by Muggle standards — provided distraction rather than illumination. Their progress was slow. Ginny had already caught her knee on a branch and Neville had fallen face first after putting his foot in a rabbit burrow.

Before long, Harry could see the road between Hogsmeade and the gates. He felt an instant pang of nostalgia for the trips to the town. It was sobering to realise that, even if he had returned to school, the Hogsmeade weekends would almost certainly have not been allowed. No students would be walking that road any time soon. Harry really wished he _could_ walk it after the third time he stumbled straight into a tangle of branches.

When they reached the fence they stopped, spreading out slightly and keeping watch. Harry sat down on the carpet of pine needles whilst Scott did… whatever it was he was doing. He appeared to just be standing there. But Harry had experienced enough to have some faith in the things Scott could do with the shape, and it wasn’t long at all before the Kharadjai’s eyes refocussed.

“Right here,” he said, indicating a section of fence with his arms. “And keep your head down when you go up, just in case.” He helped each of them up to the top of the fence, one by one, letting them put a foot on one of his hands.

“That was quick,” Harry said when it was his turn. He stepped onto Scott’s offered hand and touched the fence for balance as he was swiftly lifted up. With his hands on the cold stone, he vaulted over the top and landed on the soft grass.

“Public building,” Scott said by way of explanation when he followed. “Familiar, too.”

Harry had always been told he had been safe at Hogwarts. But the ease with which Scott had slipped them through the boundaries made Harry wonder if that had been true not because the school was impenetrable (which, considering all that had happened there, it definitely was not), but because Dumbledore had been there, along with a staff of other powerful witches and wizards. Perhaps Harry’s safety had always been in numbers, not walls.

There was a warm glow emanating from the windows of Hagrid’s cabin as they made their way across the lawn. As tempting as it was to ask him for help, the parameters of the mission meant it would be better not to. Stealthiness was not one of Hagrid’s qualities. Besides, Harry didn’t want any of the Hogwarts staff mixed up in things if it all went wrong.

Soon they were in the shadow of the Astronomy Tower, its long shadow blotting out a vast pillar of lawn. Harry felt a chill as he looked up at the looming structure, knowing he stood where Dumbledore had fallen.

“All right, Hermione’s got the brooms,” Harry said, keeping his voice low.

He sort of felt as if entering Hogwarts through the Astronomy Tower was a horrible, ironic echo of the past, but it was just too convenient to pass up. The various ground floor entrances would be easier. They would also be more predictable, and it had been decided that the freedom of movement gained by starting at the top was worth the trouble of using the brooms.

It only took a short time to move all of them to the top with the three fliers they had. Scott had struggled with an aperture before giving up and grudgingly accepting the ride; it seemed that Hogwarts was still a difficult place to use his method of transportation. They assembled near the parapet whilst Harry unfolded the Marauder’s Map.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he recited, tapping the parchment with his wand. The lines of ink spread across the paper in a real-time blueprint, a source of endless fascination for him. No matter how many times he saw it, the process was still really cool.

Hermione leaned in at his right shoulder, reaching out to hold one side of the map at a better angle for her viewing. “Let’s see… It appears most of the staff are still in their offices or bedrooms, so that’s good. Filch is in his office. But who are…”

Harry followed her gaze to the two dots moving through the Entrance Hall, neither of which had been present when the Map had been checked previously. They were labelled ‘Alecto Carrow’ and ‘Amycus Carrow’. A flash of recognition was swiftly followed by rage.

“Death Eaters!” he growled. “They were here. Right here.” He looked up from the Map and remembered the scene of Dumbledore’s murder. The spot where Harry had lain, helpless. The stairs down which Scott had tumbled. The parapet from which Dumbledore had fallen. And right there, near where Snape had stood, the Carrows had been, also.

“Look at them, walking about like they own the place,” Ginny sneered, sounding deeply offended.

“I don’t know where they’re going,” Hermione mused as she tracked the pair. “We’ll have to be careful to avoid them if they’re on some sort of patrol, though I don’t know why they would be… The upper levels should remain empty.”

“That was the idea,” Harry said, still glaring at the room. He couldn’t quite shake the memories.

“Oi,” Ron said, gaining their attention. He was standing near the stairwell listening for Scott, who had gone scouting below. “Scott says it’s clear. We going?”

The last time Harry had descended the spiral staircase had been in even darker circumstances. He was presented with a much better version of the hallway when he emerged from the stairs for the second time: Scott was crouched at the corner of the intersecting hallways instead of lying dead on the floor, and there were no Death Eaters in sight. All of the rubble which had accumulated during the fight had been removed, but the hallway itself was still damaged. Pits and gouges marked the walls, and great chunks of the ceiling were missing. Harry approached the wall on the side where the Death Eaters had gathered and put his finger onto a divot that he thought had to be a bullet hole.

“What a mess, eh?” Ron said, running his own hand over the scarred stone. “Makes me wonder if I did any of this. I couldn’t see a thing in here that night.”

“I remember,” Harry said.

“I found Flitwick!” Hermione declared. She was bent over the map with Ginny and Luna. “It appears his quarters are near the staff rooms, not Ravenclaw Tower.”

“Where’s the Grey Lady?” Harry asked, turning away from the pitted wall.

“I’m not sure… But the Ravenclaw common room is empty, so we have our chance.”

They moved quickly through the corridors, making use of some of the lesser known routes and shortcuts. Initially, their pace had been hampered by a desire for greater silence. But the Map continued to show that they were alone in the upper storeys, and, though they were never reckless, they stopped trying so hard to watch their footsteps.

Harry kept a close eye on the Map, though not so close as to not also check on his companions. Everyone was understandably tense, but there was a cohesive sense of purpose and preparedness that was very encouraging. Even Neville and Luna, who hadn’t been at Grimmauld during all of the lessons and practising, took their cues from the others and moved well with the group.

Hermione walked at Harry’s right, adding her eyes to his, scanning the Map. Ron and Ginny were near them, always vigilant, whilst Luna and Neville brought up the rear. Scott flitted at the front of the group; he frequently disappeared, darting ahead or stepping around corners. Harry felt, for the first time, as if he had a real combat-capable group with him, and not just a bunch of desperate kids plus one out-of-his-element soldier.

The entrance to Ravenclaw Tower was at the top of another spiral staircase. Harry grimaced as he looked upwards. He’d come to terms with it in his first year, but there really were a _lot_ of stairs in Hogwarts.

“Have you ever seen a fat Ravenclaw?” Ron said to Harry as they started the climb.

Harry laughed. “This explains so much.”

“According to _Hogwarts: A History,”_ Hermione said between breaths, “this stairwell was designed as an intentional barrier. The Founders thought that Ravenclaws might be too busy reading to exercise.”

“I’ve always felt quite fit,” Luna said tranquilly.

“But you’ll notice the Headmaster gets an escalator thing,” Scott said. “Maybe there’s a hidden staff elevator somewhere. I can’t see most of them doing this by choice.”

“Slughorn would never make it,” Ron said, “though I guess he could roll back down.”

At the top of the stairs they found the blank door with the eagle-shaped bronze knocker. The last time Harry had seen it he’d been lucky enough to catch some Ravenclaw students already in the process of entering, and they had informed Luna of his presence. He had no idea how to actually open the door. There was no portrait to speak to.

Thus he was surprised when it was the eagle who spoke — and rather nonsensically, at that. “What can change the nature of a man?” the eagle said sonorously.

They all looked to Luna for guidance, but Scott interrupted. “What?” he said.

“What can change the nature of a man?” the eagle said again.

Scott frowned and turned to Luna. “Is this how you enter? With philosophical speculation?”

“It’s usually a riddle,” she said. “But not always. Once it was a numbers sequence. There were first-years standing out here for hours.”

Hermione seemed to like the sound of that. “Oh, that’s so much more interesting than our password! …Not as _practical_ , perhaps…”

“What kind of ruddy House makes you do homework so you can get inside and do homework?” Ron groaned.

“What can change the nature of a man?” the eagle repeated. Harry might have been imagining it, but he thought there was an impatient edge to the eagle’s sententious tone.

Scott shrugged. “The nature of man does not change. But the nature of _a_ man can be changed by time or trauma.”

“Knowledge. Epiphany!” Hermione said.

“Love,” Luna said. She looked at Neville, who blushed.

“That will do,” the eagle said, and the door swung open.

The Ravenclaw common room was decked in soft shades of blue and bronze. Swathes of silk fluttered at the walls and arches, and the carpet underfoot was deep in thickness and hue. Harry looked up and saw that the domed ceiling was painted with stars. It might have been enchanted, because they looked very realistic. There was a style of columned classicalism about the room, an awareness of noble history. He thought it was pretty nice, overall, though he felt that it lacked Gryffindor Tower’s comforting sense of home. The Ravenclaw aesthetic was proud and beautiful, but a bit distant and cold for Harry.

Scott was looking around with an odd expression. “Whoever decorated this place must have worked on the Consist,” he said.

“Luna, where’s that statue you were speaking of?” Hermione asked.

Luna led them over to what looked like the entrance to the dormitories. There stood a tall marble statue of a robed woman. She was posed stiffly, almost haughtily, her chin lifted as her blank stone eyes gazed at nothing. The diadem rested on her head. It was wrought in a very bird-like shape with a large gem stone in the middle. It was hard to get a sense of the specifics, as the carving was made of the same white marble as the rest of the statue.

“What sort of gem do you suppose that is?” Harry said.

“Impossible to say just from this. The shape is distinct, though, I don’t think we’d mistake it if we saw it,” Hermione said.

They all stood there for a moment, no one speaking. Harry reckoned they were probably all thinking the same thing: barring a miracle, searching a castle as vast and mysterious as Hogwarts was going to be an exercise in futility. Luckily, they had more than one chance at finding a lead.

“All right,” Harry said. “Let’s find the Grey Lady. Remember to let Luna do the talking.”

“Thank you,” Luna said graciously.

“I have a suggestion,” Hermione said immediately. “I would like for us to split up.”

“Have you never seen a horror movie?” Scott said.

She rolled her eyes. “I would like for us to split up for reasons other than making us more vulnerable to serve the plot. How about that?”

“Hey, you’re the teen girl with a boyfriend. I’m the single white guy with a gun, if I die it’ll be near the end in heroic self-sacrifice.”

“Stop it, this is serious! Now, I know I haven’t been able to find much in the books I have. But I’ve been considering the problem, and Dumbledore might have had additional notes beyond the reference material I Summoned from his office. I want to go to the Headmaster’s Office and look for anything else that might help us.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, except for the part about her going without everyone else. Harry was about to point that out when Ron beat him to it. “There’s no way you’re going by yourself,” he said.

“Of course not. That would be foolish,” Hermione agreed. “Rather, I want Scott to go with me. He can get me into the office. Can’t you?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem,” Scott said.

“You can’t go out there without the Map!” Ron protested.

Hermione’s lips thinned. “I have to! Besides, that’s why Scott will be going with me. He’s the most qualified to move undetected.”

“Look, I know splitting up worked out last time, but what if it doesn’t _this_ time?”

“I have to _try_ , Ron! We need every clue we can get and we can’t stay here all night!”

Harry observed the play of emotions across Ron’s open features: anger, fear, disbelief. All of which were appropriate when confronted with the prospect of Hermione traipsing off into the school with no one but Scott for company. But, just when Harry was bracing himself for a white-hot row between his two best friends, Ron did something surprising.

“Give her the Cloak, Harry,” Ron said, his voice hoarse with restraint.

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. “Hermione, give me the handbag and you take the Cloak.”

She seemed to be about to protest, but, when she looked at Ron, her mouth closed and her eyes softened. She gave Harry the beaded handbag after pulling the Cloak out and draping it over her shoulders.

“But, wait,” Ginny said anxiously. “How will we know if something happens?”

“I’ve got just the thing,” Hermione pronounced. She dug through the handbag and withdrew two of the old DA coins. “Though I wish I’d brought those mirrors you gave me, come to think of it. Drat! I was so intent on understanding them that I keep thinking of them as being unfinished… Well, these are only one-way, of course, but you can let us know when you’ve found the Grey Lady and where to meet you.”

“What about on your end?” Harry said.

Hermione glanced wryly towards Scott. “Should a real emergency occur, just follow the unbelievable noise. But I’ll send a Patronus, if secrecy becomes pointless.”

“I think we should all meet at the Room of Requirement… Like, if we get lost, if we can’t keep in touch,” Neville proposed.

Scott pointed at him. “Good, Nev. Room of Requirement is our rally point. If you get separated, go there and we’ll find you. Everyone agreed?”

No one objected.

Harry nodded. “Okay. Let’s get at it.”

***---~**~---*** 

It was unnerving to be in the hallways of Hogwarts when they were so quiet and unlit. Less so in the upper levels; there were many corridors which never saw much use. But the lower that Hermione went in the school, the stranger it became. Empty seats in empty classrooms, heavy stillness where there was usually unbridled motion. She tried not to think about it, holding tightly to Scott’s hand as he led her unerringly through the frequent stretches of dark.

It made her wish she had made better progress during her attempts to formulate a night vision spell, futile though her efforts had seemed. Most of their clashes with the enemy had occurred at night, and the same darkness that cloaked them also hindered. Scott’s ability to see thermal emissions was a massive advantage that Hermione very much wanted to duplicate. She resolved that, should she have the time, she would resume her research on the subject.

Her trepidation wasn’t just a result of her surroundings. Before they had left the others, Scott had fitted one of his handguns with a suppressor and a magazine marked by a red stripe around the bottom. Harry, reliably curious when it came to firearms, had asked what kind of ammunition the stripe denoted. Scott had replied, ‘Illegal.’ Whatever that might mean, she didn’t want him to have to use it. To that end, she had been using her invisibility to scout ahead, when the light allowed. There were many reasons to avoid risking confrontation besides her state of mind.

It was very odd to be using the Cloak without Harry or Ron with her; she wasn’t used to being underneath it by herself. Scott had refused to make use of it, citing his height. Hermione didn’t think that was much of an excuse, seeing as even if he were standing straight the Cloak wouldn’t reveal more than a few inches of his feet and ankles. But he seemed perfectly all right without it, and it was true he needed it less than she did. She wasn’t all that comfortable with him being the sole visible target; no doubt his aversion to using the Cloak had more to do with her status as a Prime than any personal objection. She didn’t care for the idea of increasing his risk for her own safety, but she didn’t argue about it like she knew Harry would have. There came a time when being a realist meant accepting what was unpleasant.

She was having a much harder time accepting that there were Death Eaters in the school. It was not unexpected, given the politics involved. But the very thought of the Dark supporters being allowed where Dumbledore had once endeavoured to keep them out… Sickening. Enraging. There was a small, ugly part of herself that wished the Carrows would wander her way: Scott would extinguish them. She did her best to ignore such thoughts, knowing that her ability to do so was what separated her from the enemy.

She peeked around the nearest corner, checking the hallway for signs of life. “There’s nothing,” she whispered.

Scott went forward on silent feet to the next intersection. The stairwells had been moving around again and their original route had been altered. Now they were on the fourth storey, trying to find a different way down. He pushed aside a tapestry and ducked into a passageway which would avoid several of the more frequented classrooms.

It was pitch black behind the tapestry and Hermione didn’t dare create any light. She put her hand onto Scott’s right shoulder and hoped that her feet didn’t catch on anything. It was so dreadfully unfair that he wasn’t equally blind. When he stepped to the side, her hand slid down his back before catching on an object she couldn’t immediately identify. Mottled rubber brushed the back of her fingers; she realised it was the handle of his knife (the large one with the thick spine, which was really a straight-backed machete, though he never referred to it as such).

She would prefer not to see him hack anyone to death with it. “If we come across someone, why don’t you let me Stun them. It would be quieter that way,” she whispered, trying to appeal to his sense of stealth.

“If I’m seen, I’ll start to surrender. You take them from the back,” he said.

Scott’s tactics always stood in such stark contrast to what Hermione knew of wizarding combat, based as it was on centuries-old duelling codes. He didn’t seem to know _how_ to fight fair. The substantial portions of her brain dominated by logic had always rather admired that about him, when the rest of her wasn’t morally appalled at his ruthlessness. Not that she minded his lethal approach to the Death Eaters — not as much as she once had, anyway. It was his casual disregard for the truth and any human lives not directly tied to Harry that left her conflicted.

Although, perhaps she was being unfair on the last point. It wasn’t as if Scott had _actually_ tried to kill Dean, or anyone else who had been an inconvenience. Dean was still alive, after all. Or, at least she hoped he was. Being a fellow Muggle-born, Dean’s continued survival was very much an open question.

Another corridor, this one with windows. The clouds had parted somewhat and faint moonlight granted enough illumination that Hermione didn’t have to rely on Scott for navigation, speeding things along. She looked down into the courtyard below. It was a major thoroughfare for the students, and it was eerie to see it so empty.

They managed to reach the gargoyle standing vigil at the entrance to the Headmaster’s Office without encountering any signs of life. Hermione allowed herself to relax a bit, letting the tightness in her chest ease ever so slightly. According to the Map, Professor McGonagall had remained in her usual quarters, perhaps uncomfortable with taking the rooms that adjoined the office. Hermione doubted that the Transfiguration professor would be given the chance to come to terms with the idea; with the Ministry under Death Eater control, they could easily assign one of their own to the post of Headmaster. Such an announcement might have already been made, but Hermione hadn’t seen the _Prophet_ in some time.

The gargoyle was an impassive sentry. “Now what?” Hermione said.

Scott reached out and rapped on the statue’s face. “Open up.” Nothing happened, and he _tsk_ ed. “My time saving measures never work. Start listing candy.”

It only took about thirty seconds of guessing before the gargoyle moved aside. Not the greatest security system, but she supposed that wasn’t really the point. It was an inconvenience by Dumbledore’s design. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the gargoyle would move of its own volition when presented with a real emergency. Or perhaps the Headmaster would be made aware of who was attempting entry.

A short trip up the odd spiral stone lift and they pushed aside the double doors and walked into the dark and quiet office. Nothing looked disturbed, compared to when Hermione had last been there. All of Dumbledore’s instruments remained on their shelves, along with what she had thought was his memorabilia. Either some of the things had already belonged to the school, or he had bequeathed them to it. Or, perhaps, in the absence of any living relatives, they had nowhere else to go. Although, didn’t Dumbledore have a brother? She was fairly certain that was the case.

It felt a lot like invading a tomb. She shuddered beneath the Cloak, feeling smothered by it. She tore it off and stuffed it back beneath her robes, taking a deep breath to steady herself. A bare corner of the Headmaster’s desk caught her eye.

“That’s where I stole it from,” she murmured, approaching it.

“What’s that?” Scott said, leaving his examination of the silvery instruments.

“The locket. I took it from right here.” She placed her palm on the desk. It was smooth and cool to the touch.

“I heard about that.” Scott gripped the back of the chair facing the front of the desk, his eyes distant. “That was a smart move.”

Hermione exhaled, hard, through her nose. “No, it wasn’t.”

He looked up, curious. “It’s what got us the real one.”

“No, I know. But my own estimation of the false locket’s importance has little to do with it. I…” She had been afraid to discuss that moment. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it implied, but she was just about sick of her unease with the subject. She was hardly one to ascribe to ‘ignorance is bliss’, never one to stick her head in the sand. It was past time to ask. “I’d never seen it before and had no idea it was supposed to be a Horcrux. Rather, I took it because it… It felt important. I _felt_ it.”

“Ah.” Scott ran his fingers over the same spot on the desk that she had touched. “And it wasn’t in an intuitive way, you’re saying.”

“It was the way you talk about.” She stared at the corner, trying to make sense of the memory. “…Did you do something to me?” Her head snapped up to look at him.

He smirked down at her. “No. Someone like you who is close to the shape — or at least the UO facet of it — has a higher chance of experiencing sensitivity. You increase your compatibility through proximity. It’s why Primes are so much more likely to work as recruits than others.”

“Why hasn’t it happened since?”

Scott shrugged, sitting on the edge of the desk. “You were very close to an important object at the time. The shape was still subsiding after everything that had happened, so maybe all that turbulence had something to do with it. Who knows? But I don’t think you’ve ever been very sensitive to begin with. You’re definitely not an esper.”

“That’s good,” she said without thinking about it. “…Isn’t it? What’s an esper?”

“Someone with a naturally high sensitivity to the shape.”

“So someone powerful, like Dumbledore,” she assumed.

“No, a high sensitivity to the _raw_ shape, the true shape. Not a manifestation of it. Unrelated to magic. Your Seers may be espers, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m pretty sure that Luna is.”

Hermione considered that for a moment. “…I can’t say that surprises me,” she concluded. “Is that due to any particular strain? Perhaps Kharadjai ancestors, a bit of common blood?”

“No such thing. Either you’re a Kharadjai, or you’re not.”

“At least I know I’m not going mad. Nicking that locket required a great deal of soul searching.” Hermione glanced around the darkened office and set her relief aside to be examined later — there was important business at hand. “Let’s each take a room. I’ll check the Headmaster’s residence and you look in here. Set aside anything you think might be Horcrux related; even if it’s not, we’ll take it all and sort it out later.”

“Shut the door behind you when you go,” Scott said. “If anybody busts in I want it to look like I’m alone.”

“But, how will you signal me if you need help? I might not be able to hear you,” she fretted.

Scott raised his handgun and waggled it. “This close, you can probably hear this even with the suppressor. If not, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll just lock the big door.”

“All right,” she acquiesced. At least he was taking precautions. “I’ll try to be quick.”

“Don’t try too hard. Check everything well, I doubt we’re going to get a second chance at this.”

That was an excellent point. “True. Still, we don’t have a great deal of time. I’m going, watch your back.”

She ducked into the Headmaster’s residence and shut the door behind her with a quiet click. She lit her wand but left the lamps alone, not wanting much light to reach the windows. The room was lined with bookshelves and scrolls, apparently a small private study. She had her work cut out for her.

She marched determinedly to the nearest corner and began rifling through a stack of papers, looking for anything relevant.

***---~**~---***  

Scott slid the lock on the double doors shut and walked back towards the desk, scanning the office for a likely starting place. The claw-footed desk seemed the most probable source of documents. He walked around to the back of it and pulled open the closest drawer.

“You’ll find nothing there, I’m afraid,” a voice said to his left.

Scott had his gun up before the voice finished talking. There was nothing but darkness and the wall. Except… It had to be one of the portraits. He couldn’t see the people in them through heat emissions. All the portraits were grey rectangles without much in the way of detail, the different coloured paints deviating little in emissivity.

“The latch for the shutters is just to the side of each window, respectively. The lamp between them won’t reach the door,” the voice explained.

Based on the familiar tone, Scott thought he knew who was talking. He closed and locked the shutters over the windows and managed to use his much-neglected wand to light the lamp after several tries.

Albus Dumbledore looked out from the large portrait directly behind the desk, blue eyes twinkling over his half-moon spectacles. “I had hoped I might see you again, Mr Kharan,” he said amiably.

Scott studied the portrait for a moment. “…So, what exactly am I talking to, here?” he asked slowly.

“A memory, more or less.”

“A ghost?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “Not quite. I’ve passed on, I’m afraid, and don’t linger like a ghost, or like Tom. I am a… simulacrum, you might say. A very advanced replication.”

Scott thought about that for a moment. He lowered his gun and leaned back against the desk. “So I’m talking with a semi-sapient recording.”

“If that’s how you wish to think of it. I’m not certain how to express the magic in Muggle terms.”

“Synthetic Intelligence based on personality imprinting and reconstructed memory paths. You’d be illegal in a lot of places.”

“Fortunately, this is not one of them,” Dumbledore said with an amused smile. “How goes the hunt?”

“It’d be going a lot better if your favourite pet hadn’t killed you.”

“Ah…” Dumbledore paused. “Scott, there are things of which you were not aware. I bear the blame for many, but I… Have you encountered Severus since that night?”

“No. He’s been smart enough to be absent from every skirmish so far. He must be aware I’d finish the job.”

“I must ask you not to do that. Severus is, and has always been, working for me.”

Scott rubbed at his right eye, not sure how to respond to that. “Well… It pisses me off, but I can’t help but be impressed by that level of denial.”

Dumbledore sighed. “There are secrets of which—”

“Do you not remember that he killed you? Did that get left out of whatever passes for your memory?” Scott wondered.

“Severus did nothing which I did not ask him to do.”

“You _asked_ him to torment Harry?”

Dumbledore fixed Scott with a hard look. “I asked him to kill me if Mr Malfoy could not.”

Scott couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That’s absurd. Malfoy isn’t worth that.”

“We’ll have to disagree on the matter of whose life is worth what.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “So you dropped everything at Harry’s feet in the service of some kind of moral absolutism.”

“Will you allow me to finish, or are you content in your outrage?” Dumbledore said sharply.

“I’m pretty content, thanks for asking though—”

“Severus made an Unbreakable Vow with Draco’s mother after Tom placed the responsibility of my murder on the boy’s head. If Draco were unable to complete his task, Severus was to step in and finish it to prevent him from being punished. He did so with _my_ full agreement. It was the only way.”

“The only way to _what?_ To save Malfoy and Snape’s worthless butts?” Scott said incredulously. “I’m going out on a limb here: I think I speak for both myself and the wizarding world at large when I say I’d rather have kept you! I’d kill both of them to prevent you from being mildly inconvenienced. At this point, I'd kill both of them for some very clear reasons not even involving you.”

“I’m disappointed in you,” Dumbledore said sadly, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Scott. “Are you so willing to be ruled by revenge?”

“No, Albus,” Scott said tiredly. “Revenge has nothing to do with it. Revenge doesn’t bring people back. You can’t change the things you want to change with it.”

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. “But?”

“You’re confusing revenge with prevention. Emotion and logic don’t always lead you to different places.” Scott crossed his arms. “A dead Death Eater won’t help the Muggles who were killed. But a dead Death Eater won’t kill any more Muggles. Prevention.”

Dumbledore glanced over Scott’s shoulder. “This is not the most opportune moment to debate our philosophies. May I return to the point?”

“That would be good.”

“I was already dying. I destroyed the Horcrux in the Marvolo family ring, but not before I foolishly placed it on my finger. It was protected by a powerful curse, and though a combination of my and Severus’ skills prevented my immediate death, I had no longer than a year to survive.”

Scott frowned. “So it was a mercy killing.”

“Indeed. It also served a greater purpose, which was all I could have hoped for.”

“God damn it, Albus,” Scott said coldly. “You should have told me. If you were cursed I could have done something.”

“When the extent of your abilities became clearer, I had considered it. Alas, although the curse itself was magical, the damage it wrought was not. It poisoned my blood, and even Severus could not undo it entirely.” Dumbledore nodded towards Scott. “If I had been younger, I might have come to you. But I was an old man, Scott. Even if you had purged me, my body was failing.”

“I see.” Scott wasn’t entirely convinced, but it did make sense. Short of getting Dumbledore connected to advanced life support, there may not have been anything that could be done. Sometimes the body was simply finished. “And you think that, even with you gone, Snape is still one of us.”

“I do. He has motivations which are unknown to you.”

“So _make_ them known,” Scott insisted. Dumbledore hadn’t said anything that made Scott less likely to view Snape as a possible threat.

“It is not my story to tell.”

“Right, of course.” Scott was done with the subject. If Dumbledore wouldn't justify Snape's existence, then Scott would have to decide for himself whether it should be ended. He believed that Snape had been working for the Headmaster, but had his doubts as to whether Snape could still be trusted without Dumbledore holding his leash. “Let me bring you up to speed.”

Scott gave a quick summary of all that had happened during the hunt for the Horcruxes. When he finished, Dumbledore stroked a pensive hand over his beard. “You’ll have to tell Ms Granger that I relied on my Pensieve for my research, not any physical notes. I felt the information was too dangerous to put in writing. Well done discovering the real locket. I had no idea what we removed from the cave was a fake. I only wish Sirius had lived to hear about Regulus…”

Scott didn’t know much about either man, so he said, “Thoughts?”

“Some. I have already searched the Chamber, once I finally managed to open it. Not being a Parselmouth, it took some effort.”

“Couldn’t you just… I don’t know, Summon a snake and charm it to talk?”

Dumbledore looked amused. “How is it you only received average marks at best, Mr Kharan?”

“Just because I can’t do it doesn’t mean I can’t read about it. I got an imagination, at least.”

“Unfortunately, that method — though inventive — would not work. In order to charm the snake to speak, one would have to know what to make it say. Parseltongue is a very rare and misunderstood ability, and there are no dictionaries or manuals for its use. But the details are best left unexplored for the moment. The Chamber was empty.”

“Okay. We’re working under the assumption that the Lost Diadem might be what Riddle used. Right now the others are going to talk to the Grey Lady and see if she knows anything about it.”

Dumbledore brightened at that. “An excellent plan. She is one of the few left to know of the diadem.”

“If we find it, we’ve got that sword you gave us. Good call on that one.”

“Your presence allowed me to take a calculated risk. My plan had been to hide the sword here after giving the Ministry a fake, after which I would find a way for it to come into Harry’s possession. But once I realised you were indeed dedicated to our cause, I knew I might bequeath it to you, someone towards whom the Ministry had no history of dislike. I presumed they would pay less attention to your gift.”

“I’m pretty sure they tried to open it.”

“Undoubtedly, but the law allowed only a limited delay before they would be forced to give you the items, lacking a legal pretext to seize them. I knew they would spend far more time trying to unravel Harry’s gift. Yours was made in greater haste, and they might have opened it given enough effort.”

“You weren’t worried it would sink this whole enterprise if they did take it?”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Perhaps. But the sword has a way of turning up when it’s most needed.”

“Huh. Then let’s hope it knows not to go wandering.” Scott paused. “We have a big problem.”

“Oh?”

“We found out that the cup is in Gringotts.”

Dumbledore’s eyes widened behind his spectacles. “Oh, my.”

“Any ideas?”

The ex-Headmaster frowned, worrying at his beard again. “That is quite a pickle. I’m particularly worried by what this implies about Tom’s state of mind. A random vault doesn’t fit his usual behaviour.”

Scott considered that. Kylie had never actually stated that Riddle had requested Gringotts, specifically. Just that he’d wanted the cup kept safe. “He gave it to Lestrange, she put it in her vault. I can’t tell you exactly how that conversation went, so I don’t know if he asked that it be kept in Gringotts or if that was her decision.”

“An interesting choice, either way,” Dumbledore mused. “I had thought after the diary was destroyed it would be the last time Tom entrusted a Horcrux to one of his people. The shelf, to your left — look at the top right, next to the large book with the red leather binding.”

“This green one?” Scott said, walking over to the shelf and reaching for it.

“Yes, that’s the one. It’s a history of Gringotts in the modern era. Nothing too detailed, but it’s the best description of their security measures I’ve seen. I only wish I could help you in your planning.”

“Can I take you with us?” Scott asked, tapping the edge of the portrait.

“I must stay here to advise the next Headmaster. All of us are a few steps above the typical portrait, and we are compelled to serve. There are also several security measures to prevent our theft.”

“It was just a thought. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back in here to see you again.”

“Hogwarts will soon be in the hands of our enemy,” Dumbledore said sadly, though there was a righteous anger underpinning his words. “I wish it had not come to this. But we are not defeated quite yet. To that end, I have several things to tell you that you must know.”

“Just me?” Scott said.

“I leave that to your discretion. Firstly, how do you feel about grave robbing?”

Scott shrugged. “I’ve dabbled in the area.”

“Good. Before you leave, break in to my tomb and take my wand.”

Scott raised an eyebrow. “Why? I can barely use the one I’ve got.”

“It’s not for you. Not necessarily for any of you, for that matter,” Dumbledore said quickly. He obviously knew the risk of discovery was increasing with every passing second. “Ms Granger will be able to explain everything when you tell her this: my wand is one of the Deathly Hallows.”

“That will mean something to her?”

“It will. Secondly, tell Remus he must be in contact with me as soon as possible. I know the Order is doing what they can for the Muggle-borns, and I may be able to assist.”

“You’re very well informed for a guy glued to the wall.”

“Surprised?” Dumbledore said with a hint of his old humour, but it faded almost instantly. “And lastly… Lastly, I must ask that you be circumspect with what I am about to tell you. If you choose to tell Harry immediately, I understand. Circumstances have changed. But consider it first. And consider it well.”

Scott squinted at Dumbledore. “This sounds very serious. Am I going to find it hard to believe?”

“Not once I explain. Have you found yourself in disbelief a great deal, lately?”

“I saw a snake jump out of a lady like a fucking nesting doll.”

“How horrifying. But, if nothing else, your belief ought to stretch that much further.”

Scott readied himself. “All right, lay it on me.”

“Harry is a Horcrux.”

Scott’s world slowed to a crawl as every synapse in his brain lit up with the news. _Harry was a Horcrux_. Scott didn’t know how, or why, or even when, but it made a terrible, rending kind of sense. Of course Harry was a Horcrux. How could he _not_ be? The kid stepped in every other kind of shit. It was like hearing the punchline to a long-form joke, the kind that wove in and out of events until it all came together and was so much funnier for having been delayed.

Sometimes Scott grew tired of Harry’s moping; those were the days he avoided his Priority One and let Ginny or Hermione or anyone else handle the damaged teen. And Scott always did what he could to force Harry out of his brooding and into thought and action. But when the cosmos seemed to actually go out of its way to beat Harry down… Scott understood where the battered Boy-Who-Lived was coming from. In a better life, Harry would have already had to grow up as he dealt with all the damage left to him by the Dursleys. That was a fully formed drama right there, no need for any magic or dark destinies. A different bitter coming-of-age, one with less threats of sudden death and more time to suffer and breathe. Harry barely had time to feel the pain, most days. Who did?

Enough. Scott continually suppressed his pity when it came to Harry because Harry didn’t need or want it, because Scott didn’t care for the feeling, and because it was useless. Empathy, sure, when it could be managed. Dispassionate analysis? Always. Harry needed solutions. If the Chosen One wanted a shoulder to cry on, he had better offerings than Scott.

“Tom is not aware of this, so far as I can tell,” Dumbledore was saying. “Scott?”

“I’m listening,” Scott said shortly.

“Minerva will be here soon; she always speaks to me before she sleeps, and you cannot be seen. These are things that neither she nor the Order can know. We haven’t much time, certainly not enough for you to dissect my plans, so the most pertinent information only: when Tom attempted to kill Harry, his soul was unstable enough to inadvertently split again. Harry’s connection to him is not from the scar, but from the Horcrux. Foolish of Tom, not to realise how precarious his soul has become, but he made yet another crucial error in taking Harry’s blood for his resurrection. Harry cannot directly die at Tom’s hand, which means the only part of Harry that _can_ die is what’s left—”

“Scott?” The door to the living quarters opened and Hermione peeked around the frame. “Who are you talking to? Oh! Professor Dumbledore!”

“Ms Granger. It’s a great relief to see that you are well,” Dumbledore said kindly. “I understand you’re looking for books that will be of use to you. Back in the residence there is a cupboard beneath the stairs. Inside are several tomes regarding blood-based magic you may find helpful.”

“Blood-based?” Hermione said, clearly intrigued. “That might give greater insight into what’s happened to Harry…”

“I believe so. Once you retrieve them, you and Mr Kharan should be on your way. It wouldn’t do for you to be caught here.”

“Of course, Professor. I’ll be right back,” she said, and ducked through the door again.

Dumbledore looked at Scott, his gaze piercing.”Be careful going forward with what I’ve told you. I know if I can trust anyone, it’s you.”

“Really,” Scott said slowly, a bit unsure of where Dumbledore was going with such a statement.

Dumbledore smiled. “No hidden meanings. You’re incorruptible because no one has anything to offer you. The only facet of this entire affair that can affect you is whether Harry succeeds.”

“Yeah, if he goes down that’s really going to fuck up my stats.”

“You’re the perfect mercenary. No offence intended, of course; I don’t mean that literally.”

Scott, like pretty much any Primare, didn’t care to be referred to as a mercenary, even figuratively. But he was feeling generous, so he said, “Sure, I get it.”

“I found them!” Hermione said, darting back out into the office.

“Under the Cloak, let’s go,” Scott said. He looked back at Dumbledore as he turned to leave. “Hang in there. Ha ha.”

“Yes. Quite,” Dumbledore said dryly. “The best of luck to you. We should speak again, if we are able.”

Scott huddled with Hermione on the stone escalator, waiting impatiently as the odd conveyance ground its way to the bottom. He was still trying to fit the new information he had into his perception of reality, the puzzle of the shape and the physical which never came together quite right. He could now fill in some of the gaps. The last thing Dumbledore had said was especially intriguing, and he had wanted Hermione to have the blood magic books. That had to relate to Riddle’s tie to Harry. Scott just needed time to sort it all out, and Hogwarts was not the place to do it.

“Did Professor Dumbledore have anything important to tell you?” Hermione whispered.

“Maybe,” Scott vacillated. “Get back to me later.”


	22. What Is Forgotten Is Not Gone

**22**

**What Is Forgotten Is Not Gone**  

\---

_“Those who seek immortality are fools,_   
_for immortality does not exist — not in_   
_life, and not in deed. This multiverse has_   
_but one overseer. His name is Entropy, and_   
_He will not remember you.”_

                        —Emperor Decimus Nesaeil, purportedly on being asked to  
                        convert to the Church of the Infinite Strand

\---

The only Hogwarts ghost that Harry had ever spoken with much had been Nearly Headless Nick, who had been occasionally helpful in the past (and also decidedly unhelpful, but Harry still thought well of him). The ghosts generally kept to their own Houses. The Fat Friar and Nick, though, were at least approachable and friendly. The Bloody Baron and the Grey Lady were silent, ominous figures who rarely, if ever, made any gestures towards inter-House cooperation.

So when they found the Grey Lady near the North Tower, and she responded when Luna approached her, Harry was interested just to hear her voice. It was low and smooth, and had the same hollow, spectral undertones as the other ghosts. Even Nick at his most exuberant sounded a bit like he was at the bottom of a well.

“What are you doing here, Miss Lovegood? School has not yet started,” the Grey Lady said, floating towards them.

“I've come to speak with you,” Luna told her.

The slightest frown creased her placid, ethereal face. “Have you?”

“I need to ask you about the Lost Diadem.”

The frown morphed into open annoyance; apparently, the Grey Lady's airy demeanour was a bit of an act. “I'd thought better of you. Many a student has bothered me for the diadem, hoping to cheat their way to better marks. I did not help them, and I will not help you.”

“Oh, it's not for me,” Luna said pleasantly. “It's for Harry.”

The Grey Lady glared at Harry. “Whatever advantage you seek for the coming school year, you won't get it from me.”

“Uh…” Harry shot a sideways glance at Luna, wondering if he should address the Grey Lady directly. Luna looked encouraging enough, so he said, “I'm not looking for the diadem for classes or anything. It's for…” How to put it without giving anything away? Neville and Luna had simply been told they were on a 'mission', and since military terms had worked well enough so far— “It's for the war effort.”

The Grey Lady's expression did not change. “Generations of students have given me excuses—”

Harry had neither the time nor the inclination to stand there and be lectured. “Lady, are you even listening to me? Or do you _want_ You-Know-Who to win, because it really seems like you do.”

The ghost was taken aback, floating further away with wide eyes. “No, I… Is this really necessary?”

“Listen to him!” Ginny urged. “This is important!”

“Perhaps since you're a ghost, you don't care too much what happens to the school—” Harry began.

The Grey Lady drew herself up sharply. “How _dare_ you?! I am the ghost of House Ravenclaw, and as such—”

“Good, brilliant, then you don't want the Death Eaters to take over your precious House permanently!” Harry said a bit too loudly, and Ginny placed a cautioning hand on his arm. He bit his cheek and said, more calmly, “I have to find that diadem. Everything depends on it.”

“Do you think yourself so unintelligent that the diadem would bring you victory? The Dark Lord must also be wise, yes?”

“Harry hasn't said, but I don't think it's for wearing,” Luna commented.

“It's not. I can't tell you what it's for, but I can tell you it isn't for me, either,” Harry said to the reluctant ghost. “If you know anything about it, you have to tell us. Or I guarantee, you won't have a House much longer.”

“Are you threatening me?” the Lady said with a desperate air, looking less like she believed that and more like she was running out of reasons not to talk.

“It's not _me_. Don't you get it?”

The Grey Lady stared silently at a distant point somewhere past Harry's shoulder. Then she sighed, the puff of her breath washing over Harry like the first touch of winter. “…It once belonged to my mother,” she said. “When I lived, I was her daughter, Helena Ravenclaw.”

“And the diadem?” Harry didn't really care about the Grey Lady's life story.

“It… came into my possession,” she said hesitantly, perhaps glossing over more than a few details. “It was hidden in Albania for a time. There it remained, after my death. I told no one. Until…”

Harry grimaced. “Until Tom Riddle.”

“Yes,” the Grey Lady said regretfully. “He was sympathetic, I thought he… He told me he understood.”

Harry supposed the story of the diadem was tragic, or something. “Do you know what he did with it?”

“I do not. But I know it is no longer where I once left it. He stole it… Ironic, I suppose…” she said with sadness.

“Is the statue in your common room accurate? I mean, is that what the diadem really looks like?” Ginny asked.

“Yes. The gemstone is a sapphire.”

“Well, that's better than nothing,” Harry muttered. “Thank you for your help.” He turned away from the Grey Lady, letting Luna thank the ghost more thoroughly. His mind was otherwise occupied.

He was almost positive that the diadem was at Hogwarts. It made _sense_ , logically and intuitively. He'd seen the memory of Riddle with Dumbledore, asking for a teaching position. It would have been the right time to hide the diadem, the perfect false pretences. But where would he have put it? Hogwarts was so vast… There was the Chamber of Secrets — secrets which Riddle thought only he had unravelled. There was also the Slytherin common room, where he had made the connections that would form his future cadre. Harry didn't believe that Riddle would have placed it near another House's territory. He despised them and what they stood for. Except, perhaps, Ravenclaw? Harry wasn't sure how Riddle had felt about Ravenclaw. Indifference, at best, surely.

“At least we know what it looks like,” Ron was saying. “Bloody big sapphire like that? It'd be hard to miss.”

Which was worrying, really, as something that obvious should probably have been spotted by _someone_. “Yeah. Gin, you got the coin?” he said, looking at the Map again.

“I set it. I told them we'd be here… Or should we move?” she said.

“No, it's clear for now. We can stay.” There was no one in the vicinity of the North Tower, and it was safer to stay put.

“She really didn't want to talk about the diadem,” Neville said, watching as the Grey Lady floated down the corridor, disappearing into the darkness.

“But she seems likely to keep quiet about this,” Harry said. He located Hermione and Scott on the Map — they were moving in the right direction, so Hermione must have seen the message on the DA coin. Their path looked to be safe.

“That her?” Ron said, leaning over the Map.

“Yeah, she's fine. And invisible, probably,” Harry replied.

“Wish I could say the same for us. So, where do you want to start?”

Harry thought about that. He looked at the Map again, locating the Carrows. They were in the dungeons. “The Chamber first.”

“Lovely. Odds on Myrtle keeping her mouth shut?”

“Damn it, I didn't even think about her.”

“Let me and Luna go first, she doesn't get so shirty when it's girls coming in,” Ginny offered.

“Scott might be able to get rid of her,” Harry said distractedly.

Scott and Hermione were past the point that they might run into the Carrows, but they were moving almost parallel to McGonagall, who seemed to be going toward the Headmaster's Office. There were a few smaller passageways connecting the two hallways, so hopefully the pair were keeping quiet. McGonagall's dot kept moving without pause. Soon, Scott and Hermione were ascending. Harry observed their progress until they were almost at the nearest juncture.

“They're here,” Harry told the others. He pointed to the right.

At first, there was nothing. After a moment, a very faint rustling could be heard.

“Nobody hex me, please,” Hermione said from somewhere to Harry's immediate left. He stepped back and she pulled the Cloak off, her wild hair clinging to it with static. “That was quite the climb,” she huffed, her face flushed. “Scott was right behind me, I don't know what he's doing.”

“Should we go check on him?” Neville said uncertainly, raising his wand.

Luna laid a hand on his arm. “It's best to wait. I wouldn't want to surprise him.”

Scott traipsed around the corner a handful of seconds later. “We weren't followed,” he declared. He surveyed everyone, stopping in the middle of his perusal to give Harry a very long, piercing stare.

“I know you weren't followed, I've got the Map,” Harry reminded, holding the parchment up. He frowned in response to Scott's scrutiny and glanced downwards, wondering if the Grey Lady had breathed frost on him or something.

“Good,” Scott said, looking away. “Where to?”

“The Chamber,” Ron said with false cheer. “Can't wait! Did I tell you I nearly died last time I was there?”

Scott shook his head. “Dumbledore already checked the Chamber.”

Harry blinked in surprise. “How do you know?”

“We spoke to his portrait,” Hermione explained. “He didn't have any additional notes, but these books might be of some use. Ron, can you hold open the handbag for me?”

Harry looked at her, eyes wide. “You saw Dumbledore?”

“His portrait,” Scott reiterated. “We can talk about it later, the important thing is the Chamber's already searched.”

Harry desperately wanted to know more about the Headmaster's portrait, but he pushed it aside. “Then we'll have to wait until we can get down to the Slytherin common room. Did you think to ask Dumbledore for the password?”

“I didn't even know they had a password.”

“What if we ask the Fat Lady? Maybe she can break the rules, since it's such an emergency,” Ginny suggested.

“Why would she know it?” Ron said.

“I don't know… The portraits talk to each other all the time,” she said.

“The Slytherins don't have a portrait. It's just a bloody stone wall.”

Ginny made a face. “Really? Well, that's boring…”

“They'll know,” Scott said, putting a finger on the dots representing the Carrows.

Hermione blanched. “No, no! We're being low key, remember? Violence is the last thing we need!”

“Where else can we go?” Harry put to all of them, mentally agreeing that having Scott do… whatever it was he had in mind was a last resort. And not just from some sort of squeamish, moral standpoint — risking exposure was the last thing they needed. “Everybody think.”

Harry turned inward, racking his brain. The Chamber and the Slytherin dungeon were certainly the most likely places, but Riddle might not have been so obvious. The self-proclaimed Dark Lord loved secrets, the obscure, the forbidden. There were several passages that were not well known, and a few empty rooms that saw almost no traffic. None of them were 'secrets', strictly speaking… Also, anything left there would be rather obviously out of place. Unless it was hidden behind a brick or a loose flagstone. Of course, anything so cleverly concealed would be more or less impossible to find, so Harry tried not to think about that.

Obviously out of place… Where would a Horcrux _not_ be obviously out of place? The locket had originally been in a cave, surrounded by very obvious traps and placed on a pedestal. If Voldemort had dispensed with the deadly protections and ominous pageantry, he could have buried the locket somewhere in the crevice, beneath the water. But he hadn't. And though that did fit Riddle's rather grandiose preferences, it suggested to Harry that there had to be some way to detect Horcruxes magically. Or maybe Riddle just wanted there to be no chance of forgetting where he'd placed one, along with the symbolism and ties to his past. But the locket wasn't the only his method of concealment. Nagini was hiding in plain sight.

The Trophy Room? Maybe, but Harry had been in there plenty of times and Ron had even cleaned it, once. No diadems in there, by Harry's recollection. Not that his memory was perfect. It was probably worth checking out if no one came up with a better location. It was the kind of room where there were enough shiny things that one more might be overlooked. Well, the diadem would probably be recognised by any Ravenclaw, so maybe not so much…

Everything in the Trophy Room was pretty organised, anyway. Harry remembered asking for ideas during the search for the real locket; Scott had said he would have hidden it in the attic, where there were so many things that one more wouldn't have stood out. The truth ended up being fairly close to that, but it also hadn't been by Riddle's design. He put his Horcruxes in places that meant something to him, places he probably thought that only he would know about: the cave, Gaunt's shack… Which begged the question of where the diary and the cup had been kept. Maybe, at some point, he had thought them no longer safe in their first locations, and given them to trusted Death Eaters instead.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luna calmly observing everyone, with Neville looking as puzzled as she was serene. The two of them probably had a fairly good idea of what was going on, but they couldn't be allowed to know the specifics. It wasn't that Harry didn't trust the two of them — he would with his life, if necessary, but, as the only ones who were returning to Hogwarts, they had to be kept ignorant for their own protection.

“Nev, Luna — can you two go back down the hall for a minute?” Harry felt terrible even asking, but it had to be done. “We need to talk about some things, and…”

Neville's face fell a bit, but he nodded. “Right, yeah. Come on, Luna.”

Luna noticed Harry's distress. “It's all right, Harry,” she told him as she turned to leave, “you do what you must.”

Harry was tired of not having a choice, especially when his friends paid the price. He nodded stiffly to Luna in acknowledgement, still guilty. With Neville, she went back down the corridor where they had come from, staying within sight but not within hearing distance.

“Okay, so I just thought of this,” Harry said, crossing his arms as he mulled it over. “So, Riddle gives his diary to Malfoy's dad for safekeeping. But then he gets back and finds out that it's been destroyed because Lucius didn't keep it safe at all.”

“I'm surprised Malfoy Senior survived that little faux pas,” Scott mused.

“I guess he's still useful. Anyway, so then he decides to give the cup to Bellatrix; but, he makes sure she puts it in Gringotts.”

“Kylie never said that,” Scott pointed out. “That could have been Lestrange's decision.”

Harry frowned, thinking about the slight girl's stammered confession. “…Then I don't know. But where else would she put it? And Kylie knew that it went to Gringotts, so Bellatrix had to have told Riddle what she was doing, and he was okay with it.”

“He's not taking the same chance,” Hermione said.

Harry nodded. “Right. But just the cup. He didn't give any of the others to anyone else. The snake makes sense — I mean, who's going to want _that,_ it takes care of itself — but that means he thinks the locket is still in the cave and the ring is still in that old shack. He trusts those places… But, more than that, they're really important to him. If there was somewhere else as important, I think he would have kept the cup there. But he didn't, and not the diary, either.”

“So we have to be on the right track, yeah?” Ron surmised. “This was his home for years, same as us.”

Harry thought about the orphanage, but quickly discarded it as a possibility. Riddle would never hide a part of his soul in a Muggle setting. “Now that I think about it, I'm not sure about the Slytherin common room. There's so many people going through there, and a lot of them would know at least a little about Dark magic.”

“It's not impossible that it was ignored. Remember, the locket was in a state similar to hibernation, despite being on a shelf in the open,” Hermione said. “Though that wasn't deliberate on Riddle's part.”

Scott made a noise of disbelief. “I don't get him, then. That's stupid. If anyone is going to understand a Horcrux for what it is, it's a Slytherin, and Riddle doesn't want that. Plus, it's not like the Houses are totally segregated. Yeah, the Ravenclaws know about the Lost Diadem and the other students probably don't so much, but all it takes is one Slytherin visiting her Ravenclaw boyfriend to see that statue. And a diadem in Ravenclaw colours, it's like, what the hell is this doing here?”

“But would Riddle have thought of that, is the question,” Hermione said.

“I don't know. More and more, I'm starting to realise that I don't understand how this guy thinks. He doesn't make sense.”

“I doubt splitting his soul has done any favours for his reasoning.”

Scott gave her an appraising look. “You think he's insane?”

“I think he's blinded by avarice and misanthropy. And more than a bit obsessive, as well.”

“Compulsive, too. It's that tendency we're up against at the moment.”

“Yeah, he's effing mental, we know,” Harry interrupted, breaking back into the conversation before Hermione and Scott could totally run away with it. “And that's why he'd hide something here to begin with. Because he thinks he's such a big deal, because he loves knowing things that no one else knows.”

“Or at least that he _thinks_ no one else knows,” Scott said absently.

“Right, secret rooms that maybe aren't as secret as he…” Harry's arms dropped, going slack as a realisation struck him like lightning. “…You think Riddle would ever ask a house-elf about Hogwarts?”

Hermione scoffed. “Of course not. I doubt he'd deign to recognise their existence.”

“Right. But it was a house-elf that told me about the Room of Requirement.”

There was a long moment of silence as they all stared at each other, caught in simultaneous revelation.

Ginny broke it. “Bloody hell!” she swore. “Were we in there with it this whole ruddy time?”

“Nearly, I should say — the room can take many forms, we don't know how many, and it could be in any one of them,” Hermione said, eyes bright.

“Then let's be specific, and see if that works,” Harry said eagerly. He waved to Neville and Luna, getting their attention and bringing them back over. “We're going to the Room,” he told them.

“Should I bother asking why?” Neville said with an unconvincing laugh. He was obviously hurt by the exclusion.

“I wouldn't. You're already in a bad position,” Scott said seriously.

“Oh.” Neville looked at Luna with concern. “Right.”

Harry knew finding the correct configuration for the Room might end up being quite the problem, but he was so relieved to have a real, solid lead on the Horcrux that he barely cared. It felt like a good one, too. He really thought they were on to something. The Room of Requirement was exactly the kind of arcane mystery that Riddle would have latched on to.

The Map led them to the Room without incident; the upper levels remained dark and empty. The sheer size of Hogwarts had often been exhaustingly inconvenient when going from class to class, but for the purposes of stealth it was a real benefit.

“We need a place to hide things…” Harry verbalised his thoughts, pacing before the entrance. “We need somewhere to keep something important…”

“A diadem, especially,” Hermione added.

“We need a place to hide a diadem…”

“We need a storage room, Room,” Scott said.

The door appeared. Harry looked at it for a moment, hesitant to open it. “Think we'll get it right the first time?”

“You said diadem, like, exactly. If the Room didn't understand, I don't think it would open at all,” Ron opined.

“It's always given us what we wanted before,” Ginny said optimistically.

That was true, and, for all the times they had used the Room, they had never really explored the limits of what it could do. “Please work,” Harry muttered, and then he pulled the door open.

When they stepped inside they were greeted by a mess the likes of which Harry had never seen.

There were piles of furniture, endless shelves, mounds of discarded papers and quills, and more miscellaneous rubbish than could be comprehended. The ceiling vaulted overhead, higher than usual, deep shadows pooling out from the arches, painted by light from a source that wasn't immediately apparent. Just outside of the small, clear circle in which he stood, Harry spotted six different swords, an armchair with half the stuffing falling out, a cage with what looked to be at least eight different bird skeletons littering the bottom, a jester's cap, a pile of soap bars, a Muggle refrigerator, a snapped broomstick, a tarnished trophy, and what looked like a car tyre stuffed with towels. Above all else, there were books, thousands of them, stacked on every shelf and flat surface.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to smother a hysterical laugh. “…Hey, Scott.”

“Yeah?” Scott said, nudging at an overturned vase with his foot.

“Remember where you said you'd hide something if you had to?”

“Aw, man. I usually love being right.”

“What _is_ all this?” Neville said, gawking at the heaps.

“Everyone's favourite rubbish bin,” Ron surmised.

“And even that's an understatement,” Hermione said. She picked up a book at random: the cover was inscribed in a language Harry didn't recognise. “I would say generations of students have left things here, going back to the founding. Although… Even given the antiquity of the school, there are too many things for everyone to have stumbled across this by accident. I wonder if the Room was common knowledge, once.”

Scott shrugged. “And people share.”

Hermione nodded and leaned close to his ear, speaking quietly. Harry took a step towards them to listen. “True. I think we need to reconsider Riddle's motives, in this instance. It's not possible that he thought only he knew about the Room, not looking at all this.”

“Unless he knew something we don't,” Scott whispered back.

“Such as?” Hermione asked, frowning.

“Maybe we're making a wrong assumption about the nature of the room. Maybe when students lose things at Hogwarts, it all finds its way here.”

“That's an interesting idea… But, how would that come about?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “How does any of this shit happen? I don't know, it sounded magical.”

“Does it matter?” Harry interrupted. He glanced away to make sure Neville and Luna had wandered off. “He put the Horcrux in here, and if we didn't know what to look for we'd never find it. And we might not anyway, no matter how long we spend. So… let's start.”

“Go team,” Scott drawled.

“We should have him encourage our enemies,” Ron sniggered.

Harry ignored the two of them and carefully stepped his way over to a bookshelf that was large enough that he wouldn't be able to reach the top of it. There was more than just books stacked on it, and he dug around in a few small bins and pulled a handful of wooden coins out of a brown bag. Three other cloth bags contained marbles. He moved a clay pot filled with desiccated twigs and gingerly poked aside a pair of bloodied trousers.

"Don't touch those, Harry," Ginny said, scrunching up her nose. "You don't know where they've been."

"I don't know where any of this has been. Could all be covered in anything," Harry said, shrugging.

Ginny withdrew her hand from a zebra-striped pillow. "Oh, lovely."

"It's not that bad, actually. It's pretty interesting in here," Harry noted.

"You would say that. It's like we've shrunk down and ended up inside your trunk," she gibed, moving off in Hermione's direction.

Strains of music filtered in from his left, and he turned to see Scott standing in front of a music box, playing along to the twinkling refrain with an extremely out of tune guitar. “That's not what we're looking for,” he called out to Scott in exasperation.

“This guitar is a piece of shit. This is, like, a fifty-dollar garage sale guitar,” Scott replied.

“Hey, Harry!” Ron yelled. Harry craned his neck even further back — he could only see about half of Ron behind a large metal wardrobe. “Look at this, it's one of the chess pieces I played with in first year! You know, the big ones!”

“Is it the one that brained you?” Harry asked.

“No, it's just a pawn,” Ron said, sounding disappointed.

“So we know someone's been in here since then, at least,” Hermione remarked, her voice drifting up from behind a pile of folding chairs.

Harry opened his mouth to respond when a loud crash rang out from somewhere on the other side of the shelf he was searching. “What's that?” he said, trying to look around the shelf.

“Are you all right, Neville?” Luna said.

“It's all right! It's just me. I fell,” Neville shouted, sounding harried.

Harry moved back to where he had been and knocked a grey book off one of the slats. He winced when it bounced off his foot and bent down to pick it up, glaring at it. _Von unaussprechlichen Kulten?_ What the bloody hell did that mean? The designs around the edges of the cover were vaguely sinister. The words looked German, he thought.

“Hey, Scott.” Harry leaned back and whipped the book towards Scott, who deftly snatched it out of the air. “Is that German?”

Scott glanced down at the cover. “Yeah… I don't think you should read this.”

Harry hadn't planned on it. He abandoned the shelf and crept sideways between two book mounds and then awkwardly climbed over a record turntable. He carefully bypassed a rack of corked potion bottles, the contents of which still looked vile, despite their apparent age (there was a heavy coating of dust on the glass). Nothing but books, a chipped tea set and a wooden desk littered with carved hearts. He pushed a few stacks of books aside half-heartedly, feeling like he wasn't in the right place. Maybe there was somewhere with more jewellery…

A conversation drifted up from behind a jumbled wall of chairs. “Where on earth did you— no, it doesn't matter. Just put it back,” Hermione ordered.

“Why should I? Harry gets a gun, why can't I have an axe?” Ron countered.

“Harry is learning how to use that gun properly. Are you going to ask Scott for _axe_ lessons?” Hermione said condescendingly.

“I might at that,” Ron said pugnaciously.

“Ron! You can barely lift it, and you're telling me you're going to lug it along on our next outing?”

“It would look good on my wall, anyway.”

“That thing is _not_ going in our bedroom,” she said with a note of finality.

Harry tuned them out, moving deeper into the Room. Weird echoes stirred about the stacks, muffled noises of movement and snatches of words slipping between dust-coated slats and yellowed pages. He hoped it was all from his friends, or maybe some harmless magical portraits. He didn't like to imagine what else might be moving and speaking in the Room. Thus far, no one had encountered any objects that were hostile or even all that dangerous, but that could easily change. He was actually surprised he hadn't cut himself on anything yet.

Thinking of the portraits that might be in the Room, he was more than a bit jealous that Scott and Hermione had been able to speak with Dumbledore's visage. Between the two of them they could be trusted to have covered anything relevant, but Harry still wanted the opportunity for himself. He had personal questions. And an aching part of him might be assuaged by seeing even a flat replication of the Headmaster. It would have been a bright spot of something approaching normalcy, a short trip to saner times. Though, more and more it seemed the sanity of the wizarding world had been nothing but a ruse, a thin veneer. The Dark had still been there, biding its time, waiting for the master to return.

Harry tripped over a large chunk of amber containing a single enormous butterfly, effectively removing him from his thoughts. He'd lost sight of the others, and stood still for a moment to regain a sense of direction. Blurry shapes were moving to his right, distorted by a poorly arranged pile of crystal balls.

It was Neville and Luna. "What creature do you think this horn belongs to?" Luna was saying.

"Um… I think that's a big spring," Neville said.

"For what?"

"…Bouncing?"

"Oh! I see, it's for sitting."

"Wait, Luna—"

There was a steely, reverberating rattle and then a tremendous crash, followed by the patter of books against the floor. Harry winced.

"Luna!" Neville sounded more amused than frantic, so Harry assumed everything was all right.

"I would have bounced well if this shelf weren't in the way. What a bother," Luna sighed. "At least I landed on my bum. I think it's all right. Would you like to check it for me?"

"Yes!" Neville blurted out. "I-I mean, no! No. …Wait. Yes. If you'd like."

Harry turned and retraced his steps, hoping to run into Ginny. Around the previous curve of shelves he instead encountered Scott again, who was busily rummaging through a multi-level cupboard on the opposite side of the book-littered aisle. “Find anything good?” Harry asked.

Scott withdrew, showering the ground with empty envelopes. “Not unless you like stamps. Ever wanted to be a philatelist?”

“I don't even know what that is.”

“Then probably not. Hey, did you hear Ron found an axe?”

“I heard.” Harry picked up a book bag that turned out to be filled with used quills. “Half this shite should have been binned.”

“There's a strong similarity to an evidence locker. Looks like a lot of this stuff was hidden to cover up some rule breaking. Stop detentions before they start, that kind of crap.” Scott held up a bent, rusted golf club, the end of which was dented and clearly bloodstained. “And some not-so-minor infractions.”

Harry grimaced. “I hope they didn't hide whoever they used that on in here, too.”

“No bodies… Yet. The night is young.”

“Not young enough. We have to get out of here before morning,” Harry said tensely. Moving their venture into the Room had bought them some time, now that they didn't have to worry about being exposed in the hallways. But the cover of night was still necessary to make their escape.

“Try to relax; just be methodical,” Scott said calmly. “I think you were right. I think it's in here somewhere.”

Harry wasn't quite as convinced, but it was easy enough to believe that pretty much _anything_ could be in the Room. He still didn't have a good idea of the size of its current incarnation. Average view distance was about five feet in any direction — the aisle he was sharing with Scott offered a whole fifteen feet before it took a turn (or just ended; Harry couldn't tell from where he was standing and he couldn't remember where he'd come in). He rotated in a circle, looking for something solid and uncluttered enough to climb. The only thing fitting that criteria was Scott.

“Hey, lift me up,” Harry said, raising his knees and surmounting a pile of books with an ungainly hop.

Scott nodded his head in acquiescence. “All right, but don't get used to it. I'm still taller.”

He bent down and picked Harry up by the feet without any apparent effort. Harry waved his arms about wildly, trying to remain upright through the transition and managing to steady himself using the top of the cupboard once he was standing on Scott's shoulders. What he saw was slightly more encouraging than he had expected.

“It's bigger than usual,” he said, trying to look backwards without falling. “But not huge. I can see the walls, we're pretty close to the left one.”

“Any diadems?”

“No. There's a videotape up here, if you want it.”

“Sure, why not.” Scott lowered Harry and took the VHS tape from him. “Oooh, _C.H.U.D._ ”

“Is that any good?”

Scott squinted. “Mmmmm, by what metric?”

Fifteen minutes later, Harry was knee deep in loose papers, all of them conspicuously lacking any marks (perhaps some professor had decided to 'lose' the work — which begged the question of why they hadn't banished or burned them, but whatever). He had discovered about eight different varieties of hats, none of which resembled a diadem. He looked around, unable to see any of his companions from where he was. He possessed the growing suspicion that most — if not all — of them were becoming increasingly distracted by items of personal interest. He'd caught Hermione arranging textbooks by year, Ron finding more of the life-sized chess pieces, Ginny placing several antique Quaffles in the handbag, Scott cleaning a flintlock rifle with a school flag, Neville collecting seeds and Luna building a book fort.

All of them had been appropriately repentant when confronted, with the exception of Scott, whose bizarre placidity was both annoying and an expression of fatalism uncharacteristic enough to cause genuine concern. Harry was starting to think that either Scott knew something the rest of them didn't, or the shape was muddling the Kharadjai's mind again. Which, come to think of it, might be a good sign.

Harry retraced his steps until he found Scott, who had moved away from the rifle and was digging into an uneven pile of candelabras.

“Is the shape telling you anything?” Harry asked abruptly.

Scott shrugged. “No, nothing overt. Although I did say there was something up north, and look where we are now.”

“All right. But, you know, you've been acting really weirdly laid back considering, so… What's the chance that there's a Horcrux in here, as an Important Thing or whatever you call it, and it's affecting you?”

Scott's face went blank for a moment, and then he frowned slightly. “I don't think that's very likely.”

“Not subconsciously?”

“No.”

“But you didn't say it was impossible.”

“…No.”

“I just thought you seemed pretty sure there was a Horcrux in here.”

“Not at first. I thought it was about as likely as anywhere else, maybe a little more,” Scott explained. “Then after we dug around a bit, I figured there was nothing. I almost voted to leave, seemed like we were wasting our time. But after a little _more_ digging, I realised there was enough stuff in here that Riddle might feel comfortable hiding something.”

“You almost wanted to leave?” Harry said, surprised. He personally didn't feel they had searched sufficiently to be sure of anything.

“Yeah, I wasn't buying it. Which, admittedly, was a wrong impulse, there could be anything in here, I don't know why I… Would think that and then immediately be so convinced there… was…” Scott's teeth gripped his bottom lip in a savage grimace, and he spun on his heel. He glared ferociously towards the aisle they had previously been in. “I really don't like having my head fucked with.”

“OI!” Harry shouted, pulling out his wand. “EVERYBODY GET OVER HERE!”

There was a collective clattering as the distributed group converged on Harry's position, knocking over who knew how many books in their rush to respond. Hermione clambered over a school desk, Neville and Luna came rushing around the nearest corner, Ginny squeezed her slim frame between two shelves and Ron ploughed straight through a stack of novels, scattering them all over the aisle.

“Here!” Ron said, panting.

“What is it? Why are you shouting?” Hermione said frantically, searching for a target.

“Scott just narrowed it down for us,” Harry told them.

“With his obliviousness,” Scott growled. He had one of his handguns out and was running a thumb over the trigger guard, his thumbnail white with pressure.

Hermione observed his behaviour with alarm. “Your…?”

“We think the diadem is right over there. Scott was by it and it made him think there was nothing here,” Harry said, stating what he had inferred.

“You're okay, though?” Ron said, nudging a still rigid Scott with one elbow.

Scott's face had slid into a blank combat state. “Depends on how you want to define that.”

“You're not dead.”

“By that very wide definition, yeah, I'm okay.”

“It was already attacking you?” Hermione said with great concern. “That's worrying. It shouldn't know what we're up to, not yet.”

“Then I guess it's been paying attention,” Harry said grimly. “We have to find it before it can do real damage. Hermione, get Scott's cube out. Come on, let's find this thing.”

Harry led the group back to where Scott had suddenly become convinced that they were on a fool's errand. He was expecting the search to take time: the heaps of rubbish in that particular space were especially daunting and he didn't know if the diadem needed a direct line of sight, or if it was completely buried and worked in an area. Either way, the longer it took to find, the more it would awaken. As ably demonstrated by the locket, a Horcrux was at least moderately powerful once it chose to defend itself. If they were lucky, the diadem was still half-asleep. If not… Well, he didn't know what the alternative scenario would be, exactly, but it wouldn't be good.

“Um, is that it?” Neville was saying.

“That's it,” Scott said.

Harry blinked, removed from his thoughts. “What?”

“That's it, right there. Right in front of my face.”

And sure enough, there it was. Scott must have been looking right at it the first time he had passed through. It sat on a pile of bundled clothing, innocuous, non-threatening. It was old and tarnished, stained by time and neglect. The sapphire had little lustre, the silver was blackened. It looked more like rubbish than a priceless treasure.

Harry snatched a tattered set of robes off a nearby table and wrapped it around his hand. “Hermione, hold the box open.”

“I'm not positive a few layers of cloth are adequate protection,” she nervously replied. She readied Scott's cube regardless.

“I'll be quick,” Harry told her, not actually sure if that would make any difference. “Scott?”

“Hurry. I'm having trouble pinning it down,” Scott said, his eyes unfocussed.

Harry didn't need extra encouragement. He was starting to feel like going anywhere near the diadem was a terrible idea and he should probably just leave, but he was cognisant enough to recognise the impulse as not being his own. Hermione held the cube out and he swiftly batted the diadem into it, the silver ringing out when it hit the bottom. Hermione snapped the box shut and slid it back into her handbag.

Harry pulled the robes off his hand and made sure his skin hadn't rotted away. He didn't think that was an unreasonable reaction considering what the diadem was and who had made it. Hermione's handbag wasn't disintegrating, so that was a good sign. They had agreed to take the Horcrux back to Grimmauld before confronting it. None of them felt comfortable trying to destroy it in an unsafe location, considering the unknown qualities it might use to counter-attack.

Harry checked the Map as they hurried back down the cluttered paths to the exit. He'd been possessed by the paranoid fear that, somehow, the Carrows would be camped just outside the door, guaranteeing a confrontation. Harry couldn't think of any way that might happen other than the Grey Lady's betrayal, but it was a fear born of increasing tension now that they had to escape. No doubt Riddle could draw the right conclusions if two of his minions had been defeated just outside of the Room where he had hidden one of his Horcruxes.

But the upper levels of the school remained clear, silent and dark. Once they left, there would be no evidence they were ever there at all.

They retreated back to the Astronomy Tower, following Scott's dim outline and the occasional glint of moonlight on the steel of his weaponry. At the top, the moon had begun to peek out from behind the clouds, but it was still dark enough for their purposes. They descended on the brooms and hurried across the sussurating expanse of darkened grass, blades hissing gently against their ankles and stretching back upwards after being crushed in their wake.

As they went across the gloom-shrouded lawn, Harry suddenly realised that Scott wasn't with them. He checked the shadows closely. “Where's Scott?” he whispered.

“He must have gone ahead,” Hermione guessed.

Harry clenched his teeth in frustration. It wasn't as if they could sit around and wait. “Let's get back to the wall.”

They were about two-thirds of the way back when Harry spotted Scott in the muted moonlight. The Kharadjai was moving low and fast, coming back towards them from the direction of the lake. Harry knew better than to stop out in the open, so he kept going, knowing Scott would catch up.

It wasn't long before Scott fell in beside Harry. “Where'd you go?” Harry hissed.

“I had to check something,” Scott replied.

“You can't just disappear like that! You're the one always telling us to stick together!” Harry lambasted him.

“I couldn't exactly leave a note. I'll explain when we get back, just keep moving.”

Harry was still angry (the whole moment also brought back some of the leftover rage concerning Scott's lies at the Hollow), but he let it drop. There was a time and a place to berate Scott, but deep in enemy territory was a poor choice of both.

When they reached the wall, Harry paused whilst the others climbed over. He looked back towards the school, looming over the lake like a man-made mountain. Gryffindor Tower was dark. It was nearly September; the nights were growing cooler. The castle was his home, and instead of anticipating his return to its enlightened halls, he was running from it.

He didn't want to turn and look away. He might never see Hogwarts again.

“Get over here, you pillar of salt,” Scott murmured, poking Harry's shoulder and jolting him from his reverie.

Harry tore his gaze from the school and put his foot into Scott's waiting hand, vaulting over the wall. The woods cloaked him beneath the rustling canopy, and all together they slipped back into the night.


	23. Nothing Important Happened Today Part II

**23**

**Nothing Important Happened Today**

**Part II**

\---

_Mind’s eye winks in kind_   
_selectively, often blind_   
_solipsistic reverie_   
_attuned to old frequency_   
_chained before a line of sight_   
_and sound, fine sensory plight_   
_past takes flight, comes ‘round again_   
_time traces tighter circles_   
_Circles have no end_

            —Dorothy Dawes, _Fifty-Nine_

\---

Harry awoke flailing, scrabbling his limbs against dark surfaces as he lashed out the last remaining spikes of panic. He froze, panting, as the sweat cooled on his chest and forehead and the outlines of his surrounds slowly faded in from the shadows. He felt caged. He couldn’t remember where he was. It wasn’t until the faint red glow of the digital numbers next to his bed caught in the corner of his eye that he came back to himself. The light emanating from the squat, plastic clock on his bedside table was the beacon back to sanity.

He fell back onto his pillow with a sigh, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and pulling his knees up, letting the cool sheets run across the bare bottoms of his feet. He put his hand out to his right, hoping he hadn’t awoken… Who? He had been sure there was someone else there with him. The nightmare had been so real that he could almost still see the long hair fanned across the mattress next to him. He felt a pang of embarrassment. Had he been dreaming about a _girl?_ It would be just his luck if he’d said anything out loud. Dudley might have heard him through the walls, and there would never be an end to the teasing.

Harry sat up, straightening out his too-big pyjamas and sliding his glasses on. He couldn’t go downstairs for a glass of water without waking Aunt Petunia, but he could drink from the tap in the loo. If there was one thing to be said for his old cupboard, it was the easy access it provided to the kitchen. He sort of missed that. Of course, if those strange letters kept coming for him, he might end up back in there no matter how afraid Uncle Vernon was of… something. Whatever the letters were.

He slid out of bed and walked over to the door. He had just begun to turn the doorknob when a sudden movement to his left startled him. He nearly cried out, hopping awkwardly away and almost bashing into the door of the wardrobe. But, in moving backwards, he’d stepped out of the dim stream of light from the window, allowing it to fall across the corner where the sounds of squeaking bedsprings and rustling sheets emanated, illuminating a tousled head of blond hair.

Harry relaxed, dropping his arms. It was only Scott.

“Bad dream?” Scott whispered, one glinting grey eye peeking out from beneath the pillow over his face.

“I guess so,” Harry replied, and then stopped with a slight frown. His voice didn’t sound right to him. He cleared his throat as quietly as he was able, and reached for the door again.

“Going to see if Vernon missed a letter?” Scott said eagerly, sitting up.

“No,” Harry said glumly. “He’s not stupid.”

“Yeah he is!”

“He’s not blind,” Harry amended.

Scott grabbed his pillow from where it had fallen onto the floor, stuffed it up into his shirt, and began pushing himself in a circle on his bed, using his fists. “Hey, who am I?”

Harry tried not to laugh. “A big, dumb gorilla or Uncle Vernon.”

“Wrong! I’m Dudley!” Scott cackled.

“Shhhh!” Harry hissed, his eyes darting to the nearby wall. “I’m going to the loo, so be quiet!”

“Maaahurrwaaamuuhaa,” Scott said, face down on his pillow. He began pretending to snore.

Harry rolled his eyes and left his excitable… Cousin? Brother? Friend? Scott was… Maybe second cousin. Harry should definitely know that. He fought off a strong sense of disorientation. That nightmare, whatever it had been, had shaken him up more than he’d realised. His whole world was off centre.

The water from the tap was cool enough even in the summer, washing the dank taste of terror from his mouth. He stood back, wiping his lips and studying the person in the mirror. It was definitely his own reflection: a short, skinny boy with a mop of black hair and glasses that were too big for his child’s face. He raised a gangly hand and prodded his slumped left shoulder, narrow where it hid beneath a baggy pyjama top loose enough to display his prominent collarbone.

Still, there was something wrong about the image. He thought he had been different in his dream. It would explain why his thin limbs felt as if they belonged to someone else. He shook himself, and turned away from his reflection. He either needed to wake up fully, or sleep it off. His dream was severely affecting him, and he couldn’t even remember it.

Wait — dream? He’d been so sure it had been a nightmare just minutes ago. It was starting to seem less malevolent and more weird the longer he thought about it. It danced at the corners of his brain, tugging on his memory and making the world seem disconnected. He’d had enough night terrors to recognise the feeling, though it was rarely so persistent. He even felt a bit dizzy. Wincing, he stumbled back into his new bedroom after nearly turning to go down the stairs out of habit. He reckoned he’d be back in the cupboard soon enough, regardless of how small it was getting. Uncle Vernon wouldn’t stay terrified forever.

Harry stopped just at the doorway, frowning. Where had Scott slept? His mind was so foggy he couldn’t remember. When they were both really little the cupboard would have been fine, but Scott was at least an inch or two taller than Harry, now. The Dursleys couldn’t stuff the both of them back under the stairs, it would never work. Harry was cheered by the thought. Perhaps Dudley’s second bedroom would remain theirs by default, whatever happened with the strange letters.

He closed the door behind him and glanced at the second mattress on the floor. In the shadows, he couldn’t tell if Scott was asleep or watching him from underneath a pillow. Scott was always observing things. Even at school he always seemed to know who everyone was, who they were friends with, what clique they were a part of. It was an ability Harry had always admired. Dudley might have ruled with a heavy fist, but Scott ensured that he and Harry were left alone, if not befriended. Scott could be vicious, and all the other kids knew it.

Harry fell down onto his bed and put his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Getting off his feet seemed to improve things a bit, though his pillow was unpleasantly damp with sweat. He flipped it over, savouring the dry, cool texture of the other side against his flushed skin. He was almost afraid to try and sleep, in case he emerged once again biting back a scream. Scott wouldn’t mind, since he was awake at random hours all the time and never seemed to keep a proper schedule, but the Dursleys would be furious if Harry woke them, especially with all the strange goings on lately.

“Think we’ll get to keep our new room?” Scott spoke from the darkness, startling Harry from his thoughts.

“I dunno,” Harry said honestly, shifting a bit. “Depends if Uncle Vernon gets more angry than scared.”

“Man, we’re not even going to fit downstairs!” Scott exclaimed, rolling over again. Harry thought that Scott just liked hearing the springs squeak. It was probably a novelty after sleeping in the linen cupboard (Harry was relieved he’d finally remembered). “All my snacks are down there, though.”

“I think Aunt Petunia knows there are crisps missing,” Harry warned.

“Whatever,” Scott said in a bored tone, perpetually indifferent to the possibility of punishment. He was nothing if not a defiant inmate at the Dursley household. Harry preferred to just be left alone.

 “…I can’t remember my dream,” Harry sighed.

“Was it about ghoooooOOOooossttttssss?” Scott warbled.

“Those aren’t even real,” Harry scoffed.

“They are real, totally. Totally real. I can see one right now. I can see, like, twenty. Thirty! Stay back! Back, you damn dirty ghosts!” Scott chattered, pointing to random corners of the room.

Some of the kids at school still made fun of him for his flat American accent, though not so much to his face. It was dangerous to say things to Scott’s face. A woman from the school had once told Aunt Petunia that Scott had violent tendencies and poor impulse control, along with a bunch of other words that Harry hadn’t understood (but he knew that Scott was kind of mental). Harry had always been afraid that, someday, Scott would do something bad enough to get kicked out of school, leaving Harry alone. So Harry always tried to even out Scott’s mood swings and intercede when one of the blond boy’s sudden rages came on. Scott would get real quiet and real stiff, and Harry would drag him away or distract him before someone got their nose broken, or (as had happened on one particularly bad day) concussed.

Harry was smart enough to know that Scott needed more help — like medicine or a special instructor or something — but he wasn’t going to get it from the Dursleys. So Harry just did his best to guide his friend (cousin?), and keep him focussed.

“Where’d you go?”

“Huh?” Harry snapped out of his thoughts yet again. Never mind keeping Scott focussed, Harry was having a hard time concentrating. He felt like he was still partially dreaming, trapped in his own head. He lifted himself up on his elbows to make eye contact with Scott, but the other boy was gone. “Scott?”

“Graaaaawwrrr!”

A blanket-covered hand extended up from the floor and batted harmlessly against Harry’s stomach. He recoiled from the edge of his bed and looked down: a big cloth lump was sitting there. Scott had piled several blankets over himself and was crawling under them, concealed like some bizarre mobile pillow.

“I’m an amoeba!” he proclaimed.

“A what?” Harry laughed.

“An amoeba! I’m engulfing you with my pseudopod…” Scott freed a hand and pulled one of the blankets off himself, throwing it over Harry’s legs. “Don’t be alarmed, non-amoeba. This is how I feed.”

Harry stifled a snort. “What if I don’t want to get eaten?”

“Too bad! You can’t escape without your legs. That’s… so impossible.”

“I’ll grow new ones!” Harry declared, and scampered away to the other bed.

They continued their impromptu game for about half an hour, with Harry fleeing whilst Scott slowly pursued him, shuffling beneath the blanket. The ever-present danger of waking the Dursleys just added an element of suspense. Eventually, they tired of it and retreated back to their beds, talking about the visit to the Zoo, their unfinished plans for summer break and the mysterious letters.

The next morning, the two of them were locked in their room whilst Uncle Vernon frantically dealt with the onslaught of letters. Or, at least, that’s what Harry assumed was happening. It was about time for the post to arrive, and there was a great deal of shrieking and cursing reverberating up the stairs. He sat on the edge of his bed and glumly waited as another chance at grabbing one of his letters slipped away. Scott listened to Vernon’s struggle with an air of sadistic glee.

Harry supposed they ought to use their new space and Dudley’s discarded toys to enjoy themselves so long as they could, but his intense curiosity was overriding his sense of fun. Who could possibly be sending him letters? He didn’t really know anyone, outside of Scott.

He thought it might have something to do with his parents. Nothing else made much sense (not that the seemingly infinite letters made much sense to begin with — something weird was happening). And that meant that it might affect Scott, too, since he was Harry’s second cousin or something. But Scott had been unperturbed by the sudden influx of neatly-inked letters.

If Harry had been somebody else, he’d have probably thought that Scott knew something about the post, maybe even expected it. But Scott had always been like that, reacting to odd occurrences by hardly reacting at all. It was just the way he was. The same frequently hyper kid that had become disproportionately enthused about collecting pine cones the previous winter had asked only a couple offhand questions when the glass had inexplicably disappeared at the Zoo, freeing the boa constrictor.

It could be frustrating for Harry, to feel like he was alone in questioning how his hair had suddenly grown back after that disastrous haircut, or how he had ended up on that roof without any memory of climbing it. He was glad that Scott never called him a freak or mocked him for making things up like the Dursleys would have done, but, if Scott didn’t think Harry was imagining things, then why didn’t he care about what that meant?

Harry pondered that, looking out the window and squinting against the glare. It was something he hadn’t thought about much when he was younger. Anything could seem normal when you grew up with it. Now he was nearly eleven years old, and the letters were making him reconsider things he had barely considered in the first place. Scott’s lack of curiosity was, in retrospect, troubling.

“Something out there?” Scott trotted over to the window and peered out to determine what Harry was looking at. “Is it that big dog again? I love that big dog.”

“It’s nothing,” Harry said. He reached over and poked Scott’s shoulder, hard. Physical aggression of one kind or the other was usually the best way to hold Scott’s scattered attention. “Hey.”

“What?” Scott glared, rubbing his shoulder.

“What do you think is in the letters?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. School stuff.”

“But where are they all coming from? Don’t you think this is really weird?” Harry pressed.

“It’s just how you are,” Scott said nonchalantly.

Harry blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, the stuff that happens with you. Like your hair, or when you made that snake escape.”

“So you _did_ notice!” Harry exclaimed.

“Duh! I’m not _stupid._ You think I’m stupid! Screw you, Harry! You get screwed!” Scott shoved Harry in the chest, knocking him back onto his bed.

Harry didn’t retaliate; Scott never hurt Harry the way he had some other people, but he could get pretty rough. Harry would just get him back later, anyway, since they were in the middle of something more important. “You always act like it’s not a big deal!”

“It’s not!”

“I think so!”

“It’s not. _You’re_ stupid,” Scott grumbled. “It’s just how you are. You’re special and you make things happen.”

It was hard to deny, although Harry wasn’t sure if he made things happen or if things just happened to him. “I guess… But, I don’t know why.”

“Because you’re Harry Potter.”

Harry pondered that for a moment. “…So?”

Scott tossed his hands into the air, apparently pushed beyond endurance (a very short trip for him) by Harry’s incomprehension. “So? SO?! You’re Harry Potter, you’re the main guy! Crazy junk is always going to happen to you.”

“I’m just another kid, it’s not all about me,” Harry protested, not feeling particularly important.

“YES IT IS!” Scott howled. “YOU’RE THE MAIN GUY.”

“All right, shut it!” Harry hissed, hoping that Uncle Vernon was too preoccupied to see what the racket was about. “I get it!”

Harry didn’t actually get it, not even a little bit, but it was clear that Scott had latched onto some sort of answer that made sense only to himself. It was hardly the first time that had become the case; Scott was either very creative or had some kind of disability, depending on which adult was asked. He definitely didn’t see the world the way most people did. He often seemed to see a different world entirely, one with strange patterns and rules. Apparently, the fact that Harry had always been ‘the main guy’ was, to Scott, abundantly obvious.

Harry didn’t know why being whatever Scott thought he was made him special or more likely to have odd things happen to him. But he didn’t ask for an answer: he wouldn’t get one he understood, because he _never_ did. It was like the times when Scott talked about all the ropes and threads he could see that weren’t actually there. Sometimes Scott was worse, and sometimes he was better, and Harry had learned a long time ago that he had no control over which end of the spectrum Scott swung towards on any given day. Besides, it was easier to deal with Scott’s loose grip on reality than when his temper took a swift turn for the dark or the violent.

Scott was either still upset with Harry’s inability to grasp the obvious or bored of the conversation entirely, it was hard to say which. Whatever the reason, they lapsed into a silence that lasted about five minutes, at which point Scott became bored of that, too.

“Arm wrestle me!” he demanded.

Harry knew better than to accept the challenge. Scott could be bested in board games and homework, not feats of strength. “No way. ‘Sides, you can’t wrestle if you’re on fire.”

“I’m not on fire. Why am I on fire?” Scott said suspiciously.

“Because the floor is made of lava!” Harry said triumphantly from his safe perch at the end of his bed.

Scott shrieked and leapt onto his own mattress (“WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE?” Uncle Vernon bellowed somewhere below). After arguing for several minutes as to whether Scott had removed himself from the lava fast enough to still be alive, they established enough of the rules to continue. There wasn’t much room to play, but they were accustomed to that. They ended up putting Scott’s mattress on top of Harry’s and floating adrift on the lava sea, searching for lava treasure (they were also wearing lava-proof suits with oxygen tanks, as Scott had insisted that temperatures would be extreme and the air would not be breathable). Their attempts to rig a sail had been met with failure, hence the aimless nature of their quest.

By sunset they had banished themselves to the garden, taking advantage of the cool evening air to kick an old football around before settling down behind the flowers next to the window at the side of the house, where they could hear the television inside. Scott liked to listen to the news and Harry liked to watch the sky darken from where he lay on his back, staring upwards through the gap between the bushes and the siding. Wood chips dug into his shirt and the breeze blew dust into his hair, but he didn’t care. There was a peace and freedom in their hiding place, beneath the faint moon and swaying branches. No one was looking for them. There was nowhere else they had to be.

He lifted his head up to look at Scott, wondering if the other boy might like to go to the nearby playground and jump off the swings. Scott’s face was creased in thought as he listened to the news, though, and he probably wouldn’t be willing to leave until something else came on. Harry didn’t much care about the news, personally, but Scott was intent on hearing about the ongoing reunification process in Germany and something called ‘perestroika’, so Harry didn’t even try to get his attention (especially when the telly said that British astronomers had found an extrasolar planet: Scott really liked outer space).

Harry wasn’t absorbed by what nations were ‘on the brink’ of leaving the Soviet Union, so he closed his eyes and concentrated on the wind hissing through the grass. The air was growing cooler as the heat of the day dissipated. His eyelids became heavy, his breathing slowed. A bird fluttered overhead. Scott made a noise of interest, quiet, familiar. A car passed by the house. Harry felt himself drifting into sleep, and saw no reason to fight it.

***---~**~---***

**it was snowing out and the flakes which clung to his hair and collar were turning to slush, sliding down the back of his neck but that was fine it was just the price of playtime at the cusp of a blizzard, enjoying themselves before the snow started streaking in at odd angles, blowing into faces and whiting out the world in a haze of freezing, misted air and it was easy to forget that it was nearly supper time, not that he cared all that much, he could be hungry later, but right then Ginny was dancing just ahead of him, giggling, with a packed snowball ready to impact against his nose or groin (she always swore it was an accident), so he needed to be careful and watch her, because she needed to be watched and he just liked watching her so long as no one else noticed.**

**he took cover behind the closest tree in the orchard and tried to spot Ron, but the snow was already thickening and visibility was low like a cold fog, like smoke you could breathe and not get sick, not that he had ever breathed in much smoke but he sort of knew how that might work, and Hermione had been no help whatsoever from her safe spot near the pond where she was determined to stay, attacking anyone who came near (and it was hard to blame her considering how many times she had been betrayed already, but she was just so easy to betray), though she had sounded at least slightly hesitant when he had last approached her so maybe she would be open to another alliance before too long, it wasn’t like _he_ had betrayed her, he’d never had the chance, and they should really consider it for both their sakes because Scott was out there, somewhere, probably cheating like he always did, and all their games seemed to end with everyone ganging up on Scott because he always deserved it, and it was getting to be about that time.**

**the odd thing was, though, that the sky was getting brighter instead of darker, and it was evening so that shouldn’t have been happening, and instead of a snowball he was holding his wand, which wasn’t allowed per agreement of all present, and when he stepped forward to get back to the garden, lifting his knees and crunching through the drifts, the orchard gave way to the tunnel of trees behind Hagrid’s cabin, and Scott was just ahead to talk about war, with the steam of his breath catching the moonlight, and to their backs Hogwarts was burning with Ginny inside, she was fighting for her life somewhere upstairs, near the Tower, and he was as frozen as his surroundings, suffocating beneath the Cloak, his trousers soaked through from the cave, rimed with ice, and he could feel his blood slowing.**

**and then—**

***---~**~---***

Harry would have screamed if he had any air to do so. He had no idea where he was, but it was dark, and something heavy pressed down on his chest and mouth and he couldn’t _breathe_. He panicked, kicking out and squirming, trying desperately to get away—

“Harry! _Harry!_ Shut up, man, open your eyes!”

His eyes? They were shut… He blinked, breathing hard through his nose when the pressure on his torso lessened. He found himself staring straight up at Scott.

“You had a nightmare, I guess,” Scott explained.

Harry glanced around. The two of them were still behind the bushes below the window, but the sun had set and the stars were out. The Dursleys were probably already in bed, so there was a good chance that he and Scott were locked out of the house. He panted for a second when Scott’s hand was removed from his mouth. Not a pleasant way to awaken, but better than making a scene outside where it might wake the neighbours. Uncle Vernon would be slow to forget that.

Scott was scanning Harry’s sweat-soaked shirt with disgust. “Wow, you look like you humped a fish tank. You’re super gross, dude.”

“Shove off, it’s not my fault,” Harry grumbled, sitting up. He was more disturbed by his dream than by the state of his clothing. He felt as if he had been granted a realisation and then promptly forgotten it. Half-remembered truths tugged at his subconscious.

“What was it about?” Scott said curiously.

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “It was snowing and we were having a snowball fight… And we were going to gang up on you…”

“Whaaaaat… Are you sure it was me?”

“It was because you were cheating.”

“I guess that _sounds_ like me…”

“Arg, come on!” Harry snapped off a nearby twig, frustrated by his inability to recall the full meaning of the dream. “I can’t bloody remember anything!”

“It’s just a dream, Harry,” Scott told him condescendingly. He hopped up and pushed his way out of the bushes, heading towards the back garden.

“No, it wasn’t,” Harry muttered to Scott’s retreating back.

They settled down where they usually did, in a strip of grass between the back of Aunt Petunia’s flower bed and the fence. It was trimmed with shears instead of the lawnmower, lending it a lush, long-stemmed softness that the rest of the lawn was lacking. It was their default bedding when locked out of the house, and usually comfortable enough in the summertime with the fence blocking most of the breeze. They huddled next to each other like puppies sharing warmth. Scott was a pretty dependable heat source, as his body temperature always seemed elevated, regardless of the weather, and he didn’t move around in his sleep.

Sometimes sleeping outside was better than waking up to Uncle Vernon banging on the door about breakfast (in the event that Harry could not be found, the Dursleys were usually too apathetic to look for him). Some of the kids at school probably would have called Harry and Scott a couple of poofs for curling up together, but Harry didn’t care. It was better than being cold, and Scott was his cousin, anyway (right?), so who cared.

His own arm wasn’t the best pillow, but Harry was still tired enough that a little discomfort wouldn’t keep him from sleep. The fence creaked in the wind and an owl flitted in front of the moon. He yawned, pushed away Scott’s foot from where it was digging into the back of his knee, and settled a little lower, until the grass was tickling his nose.

And then—

***---~**~---***

**he was lost for sure, not on purpose, but somehow he had lost sight of Mr Weasley and now he hadn’t the slightest idea where he was, because the Ministry was a massive building and he’d never been there before, certainly not on his own, and he couldn’t figure out where to go, every door was unmarked, and the dark stone of the building was an odd contrast to how much brighter it had been upstairs and he was positive, just given the atmosphere, that he wasn’t supposed to be where he was, and not just in the sense that he needed to be with Mr Weasley, but also in the sense that he doubted he was allowed, it looked forbidding, secretive, and possibly even dangerous.**

**just to his left he saw Ginny duck into an open door so he followed, maybe she knew where she was going, but even if she didn’t it was better than standing in that dim entryway by himself, and as soon as he stepped in he was in awe, taken aback by the uncountable clocks that lined every wall, with Time-Turners as well, and a hummingbird in a bell jar that cycled through its life in forward and reverse, which was what he knew he was seeing, though he couldn’t say how he knew or why it all seemed so familiar in a way that was portentous and comforting, like he knew how it would all end but the ending wasn’t a happy one but at least he knew.**

**he reached out towards the jar, and Ginny was gone, he hadn’t seen her leave but he knew she was gone, and as his hand met the glass it slid through as if the hard surface were water, rippling around his skin, feeling cool but not damp, and the glittering light within danced around him, flowing up his arm, and when it reached his head he felt himself begin to move through a strange dimension, undefinable, a place where images were piled and paged through like endless stacks of paper, flipping over backwards, anticlockwise, against the stream.**

**cascading—**

_“I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”_

_“Sleep at night, Harry. Talk to me.”_

**thunderous—**

_“That’s not me, Harry! You know who I am! I am not going to **hide**!”_

_“You didn’t really want to leave me, did you?”_

**cacophony—**

_“We’re flirting, Harry. Can’t you at least try a little?”_

_“Don’t give up before we get a real chance at us.”_

**and then—**  

***---~**~---***

“AH! Not again! Wake up, you chowderhead! I mean it, WAKE — UP—”

Each word was emphasised by a solid punch to Harry’s now-aching shoulder. He rolled away from his assailant, flattening a few of Aunt Petunia’s exactingly cultivated flowers in the process. He barely noticed, staggering to his feet and pitching forward until he pressed himself, shaking, against the fence, gasping for air.

“Are you gonna chuke?” Scott said, standing just behind Harry.

The memories slowly began to settle, sliding away from the front of his consciousness to pool in an unsorted mess. So much remained unclear, but he remembered a girl with long red hair who was as fiery as the hue suggested, a tall, freckled boy who was snarky and stalwart, and a girl with untameable brown hair and an eager mind.

“Where’s Ron and Hermione? Where’s Ginny?” Harry asked. The night air was a boon for his overheated skin.

“Who?” Scott said.

Harry blinked at him. “Wha… W-Well, what about your sister? Where’s Lila?”

“Oh, she’s busy. She has a job, you know.”

“Scott…” Harry said slowly. “Why didn’t I know about her before?”

Scott stared back at Harry for so long that Harry started to wonder if the other boy had somehow frozen solid. “Well…” Scott finally replied, squinting, “…Why didn’t _I_ know about her before now, huh?”

The short silence which followed was profound. “What is going on?” Harry whispered.

Scott tucked his hands into his pockets, brow furrowed. “First guess: the shape has experienced a convulsive reordering and we were scrambled along with it.”

Harry understood what Scott was talking about, and, at the same time, _didn’t_ understand. It was as if the concepts were known to him, but not the specifics or their meanings, and although he didn’t fully comprehend it, he had heard it, or something like it, before. “What does that mean, then?”

“I don’t know… It was smart, though? It sounds good. I think it’s the truth.”

It was maddening. The explanation was so close, Harry could feel it, but it eluded him. “You think this has something to do with the letters?”

Scott shrugged. “What would they have to do with this?”

Harry paced back and forth. “They’re weird and this is weird and now we’re, like, remembering things that aren’t real… Or, remembering stuff that is real but we forgot somehow…”

“It’s not unheard of.”

“What’s not?”

“Situational memories, selective amnesia creating by a reordering, catastrophe-level or otherwise.” Scott sounded like he was repeating something he had been told, but didn’t actually understand.

“Who heard of it?”

“…People?” Scott said uncertainly.

Harry sighed. “This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe we’re both going mad.”

 _“Folie à deux,”_ Scott murmured.

“What?”

“Hmm? Well, maybe you’re going crazy. But I’m definitely not crazy, I’m pretty sure,” Scott said confidently.

That was such a ludicrous, self-serving reversal of reality that Harry didn’t know how to respond. He could accept that he might be going mad, but Scott had been mental long before the letters and the memories, and he was showing signs of whatever was happening to Harry, too.

“Quit talking rubbish,” Harry settled on saying.

“Never!”

They were both getting a bit loud; Harry sent a nervous glance towards the windows of the house. The faint moonlight lent the edges of the walls and windows a lack of definition, there was a fuzzy sense of unreality beneath the slowly shifting clouds. As if the world were a smudged painting, or a book Harry was trying to read without his glasses.

“I don’t know what to do,” Harry said quietly, making an effort to contain his growing disorientation and panic. “I’m afraid to go back to sleep…”

“What if I go to sleep first? Maybe I’ll dream instead of you.”

Harry frowned; he couldn’t see how that would work. “That doesn’t make sense…”

Scott spread his arms, eyes wide. “What does, huh? What makes sense right now?”

That wasn’t very compelling logic, but Harry also didn’t have any other ideas. “Okay, fine. You sleep, I don’t think I can, anyway.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Scott said with misplaced cheer. He flopped back down onto the grass and curled up with his head on one of his arms. “Just keep it down, I can hear you thinking. Don’t think so loud.”

“Just shut it. Stop being daft,” Harry muttered, swatting Scott on the back as he sat down against the fence.

Scott’s breathing slowed within a few minutes as he sunk quickly into sleep. Harry leaned back against the rough, varnished wood of the fence and stared up at the sky, wondering how long it would be until sunrise. Perhaps the brightness and clarity of the day would chase away his dreams, and allow him to sleep in the sunlight.

***---~**~---***

_You are standing in the hallway outside of the conference room, somewhere deep inside the complex. The location is not exactly classified, just by virtue of the traffic it gets, but it’s also not something that’s advertised. The name of the moon gets kicked around a lot, Pavarel, everyone knows that’s where the Primarius is, but as to which star system, which planet, which moon? Not common knowledge. You know it technically as Point-87-87, but no one actually calls it that outside of the dispatch addresses and the top secret blueprints. It’s the Cellar._

_True to its name, most of the complex is underground and at least slightly damp, no matter how many dehumidifiers and pumps are always chugging away. That’s to be expected, though, given the surroundings. The Cellar sits right on the equatorial belt, deep in a rainforest climate that doubles as a training ground. It’s one of the most hostile ecosystems ever discovered. You’re well aware of this, as you’ve taken your turns trying to survive the wide assortment of poisonous and/or carnivorous flora, flooding rains and deadly, highly territorial fauna._

_The Cellar is actually just one of many Primarius outposts on the moon and in the system. Also not common knowledge. But the powers that be are willing to let the Cellar gain some notoriety if the others are then ignored. You haven’t been back here since the last time you had to run training, and you can’t say you’re happy about it. In your experience, most of your briefings happen over at Charpenak, a much more comfortable institution far to the north. But your reporting orders came through in a real hurry, out of nowhere, and you have to be wherever your assigning officer is. And it looks like that’s the Cellar._

_You’re reporting to someone different this time, too. You didn’t recognise the name, which is a little worrying. You’re pretty sure you know all the officers worth knowing. Colonel Diehl is your usual dispatcher. He knows how you work and generally stays out of your way. The last thing you need is some Major, freshly promoted past their point of competency, demanding constant oversight and status updates as if you were a probationary newbie. That’s not very likely to happen (you’re in the Primarius, not Second Fleet), but what if you just don’t click with whoever it is? Knowing the right people is the only way to get anything done in a bureaucracy._

_It’s already bad enough that you aren’t going to be afforded any more than the most basic preparations. You’ve just talked to Batton over at CHRONOSEC and they’re still working on the stop and sync, so that will buy you a little time. The news wasn’t great, and Batton got real technical about the offset problems and the kind of pseudo-inertia they had to tackle. Then he gave you the usual line about doing their best and not being miracle workers. You don’t know why he bothers to try and justify his results when so much of what they do over there is based on what’s even possible at any given moment. There are a lot of government appendages that barely lift their own weight. CHRONOSEC isn’t one of them._

_You’ve looked at the papers enough to sketch out a very rough plan that involves catching this Dumbledore guy early enough to make an impression, and that will be your in (you really hope Batton can swing it). You’ve got Lil packing the essentials plus a little extra, and Crandall is putting together a list of TechEq suitable gear for you. So, even though the Praesaedius team will have literally just **days** to mine the locality for info, it could still be worse. If nothing else, the Liberi were unusually loquacious. You have some kind of ‘Prophecy’ (they spelled it capitalised, for whatever reason), so that’s a start._

_Harry Potter. A name, a nebulous ‘destiny’, and not much else. You’ve been to England plenty of times, but it sounds like you’ll be integrating in a unique occurrence of it. Even the stress of having to do what you can with the little time and information you’ve been given can’t entirely dampen your excitement. Another world, another adventure. It might be bad, sure. But you’ll always learn something._

_You don’t even know what Harry Potter looks like, but he’s about to be your new best friend._

***---~**~---***

“HOLY CRAP GODDAMN—”

Harry hadn’t realised how close to sleep he was until Scott’s sudden exclamation jolted him back to wakefulness. He turned to see what the problem was just in time to catch Scott’s thrashing elbow in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He winced, rubbing at the throbbing bruise.

“Hey!” he said, aggravated. “Watch it!”

Scott hadn’t even noticed. “Whoa, ow, my head. My head hurts. Memories hurt.”

Harry had a headache, too, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with Scott’s elbow. Scenes from a different life were becoming increasingly vivid. “So, we’ve definitely gone back in time, right?”

“Technically, no, but close enough. Come on, we gotta talk about this. Let’s go to the usual place.” Scott stood and beckoned towards the street.

They hurried across the pavement, heading to the playground. Harry now remembered it as the place where the two of them had first met. Which was a bit odd, that he would have met his cousin (co-worker?) so late in life, but he was just then realising how little of what he had known about himself was actually true. He was squeezed beneath a crushing sense of déjà vu.

The sight of the swings only emphasised that overwhelming familiarity. He had been there before, with Scott. They had both been older. They had talked of Prophecies and Horcrux hunting and how Scott’s name was pronounced. Topics both crucial and casual. It was an important place, despite its mundane nature.

And they had been late into their teens, Harry remembered that now. He remembered six years at the school he called home, and a desperate search for the keys to ending the war that had swallowed his seventh year. He didn’t understand how he had come to be young again, trapped at the Dursleys and waiting for Hagrid to explain the real world once more. But it seemed like Scott might, so the playground would probably host yet another conversation.

He remembered Ginny, too, and looked down at himself, wondering how he was going to handle puberty all over again. He hadn’t even finished the last time.

Underneath all the clamouring thoughts was a burgeoning sense of joy, almost uncontrollable. If he had gone back, if he was able to do it all again, it was an opportunity beyond anything he could have expected. He could…

He stopped himself before he could get swept away by the possibilities. First, he needed to understand the circumstances. He sat in one of the swings and clasped his shaking hands.

“Okay…” he said, keeping his racing mind under tight control. “…So, what is this?”

Scott dropped himself into the adjacent swing, rattling the chains. “I think it’s a replay.”

“A replay?”

Scott sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “A replay. You know, like pinball? Extra ball, extra play. Replay. Put in another token, try again.”

Harry shook his head. “But life doesn’t take tokens.”

“Hey, I _like_ tokens _._ They’re like real money, but fun! And they have a picture of a mascot or a go-kart on them.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say I didn’t like them, I… You know what? Who cares, maybe I don’t like them, what are you even talking about?!”

Scott shrugged and nudged one foot through the gravel, making an uneven circle. “It’s called a Spontaneous Universal Reset. Technically. But nobody calls it that — it’s a replay. It’s a universe-wide synchronous occurrence triggered by a series of latent events compounded by a more serious geometric error. The shape ceases to properly transform with the time strand and it all comes to a grinding halt, from a relativistic standpoint.” Scott once again had the manner of recitation, not comprehension.

“Do you even remember what that means?” Harry pressed.

“Yeah, kinda,” Scott said. His high-pitched, defensive tone was an immediate reminder that an eleven-year-old Scott was trying to relate the lessons of his indeterminately-aged memories. His vocal patterns had been varying wildly between the erudite, didactic language of his adult self and the rapid, disordered communications of his very young self.

“Well, just try to explain it,” Harry said evenly. He didn’t want to provoke his cousin(?). He needed Scott to hold on to a Kharadjai frame of mind.

“Okay, try this — the universe stops. But, why? That’s the big question. We could guess that a lot of little things have been going wrong. Eventually, we reach this rare point where it’s all perfectly balanced. The universe is teetering between situation normal, and critical failure. It hits a wall.”

“Okay, so my destiny sort of stops, right? Riddle can’t get me, I can’t get him?”

“Something like that. The shape runs right into that dead end — do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. So it backs up, and takes another run at it.” Scott leaned back to look at the stars. He barely seemed to be paying attention to what he was saying. “So the theory goes. We don’t understand replays. We don’t know why they happen or the precise mechanics of what is happening.”

“All right, so you don’t know,” Harry said impatiently. “But what actually does happen? What does it mean for us?”

“It means reliving your life. Or, at least most of it. It means going back to square one. And it means taking me with you.”

“So we _have_ gone back in time,” Harry said exultantly.

“No, I said no! It’s not going back because all of this reality still exists, it just becomes the past that nobody remembers.”

Harry tried to wrap his head around that. “But, I do remember! You do, too! And that means we know what’s going to happen.”

“Nuh-uh. You didn’t do this the first time. I didn’t live in a linen closet. Don’t you know anything about chaos? Nothing ever happens exactly the same way twice in the real world!” Scott retorted.

That was a disappointing (and frightening) notion. “So we can’t fix everything?”

“We can try,” Scott hedged. “Anything changed will create different outcomes. But, at the same time, the shape will only allow so much deviation. It may allow even less this time around, since our imprint remains. Like a wheel falling into a rut.”

“But maybe not?” Harry insisted.

Scott scrunched up his face. “Maybe, maybe. Could all be rewritten, or replaced. No fate but what we make, unless we already made it. Unless the song remains the same. But revision is not only for homework.”

Harry didn’t know what to think. He needed time to process, everything had changed in an instant. He wanted to stop talking about the shape, save that for later. Scott had stopped being intelligible, anyway.

He looked down and saw his foot next to Scott’s, so much smaller than in his new memories. And the appendage was even smaller than it appeared to be, as Harry was wearing one of Dudley’s old shoes, too big for him. It suddenly struck him as almost unbearably weird to be back in his preteen body.

“Look at us!” he remarked, unable to get over it. “We’re so… small!”

“Hey, _you_ are small. I’m not small. I’m at least regular-sized,” Scott said imperiously. He hopped out of the swing and stood with his arms crossed, visibly straightening his posture to be as tall as possible.

“No way, we’re both—”

“SO REGULAR!” Scott boomed, throwing his arms around wildly and jumping in place. “I’M GROWING RIGHT NOW!”

“Shhhhhhh!!!” Harry tried to shush Scott, but it was difficult through the laughter.

“This sucks though, it really sucks, it SUCKS. Are we not supposed to say that, now? You suck, playground! You suck, moon! You—”

“Scott, be quiet!” Harry squealed. He grabbed Scott’s arm and pulled him back towards the swings. “Come on!”

“Stop it!”

This resulted in a tug of war that ended with them wrestling on the ground and giggling like a couple of twats. When that particular phrase occurred to Harry, it finally served to snap him back into his more mature frame of mind, at least temporarily.

He scampered up and sat back down on the swing, determined not to let Scott run things out of control. They had to remember how to be adults, difficult though it was. “Sit down, we have to think about this!” he said in a voice so high and whinging he almost looked around to see who it came from.

“No! I won’t!” Scott declared. “I have to grow! Like this!” He emphasised every short sentence with another jump. “I used to be… a big guy! Girls liked me!”

“Girls never liked you,” Harry scoffed.

Scott gave him the nastiest look a preteen could summon. “Yeah they did! I was a big blond sex machine on the highway to Pound Town!”

“Pound Town?!” Harry repeated, and it sounded even more vulgar in his eleven-year old tenor than it had in Scott’s.

“You heard me!”

“Just sit down, we have to talk!”

“We just did, I said—”

“Not about the shape, you’re full of rubbish anyway,” Harry said, gesturing to the swing next to him. Scott was too loud to be running around whilst they talked, he needed to calm down. “We need to decide what to do next.”

“Doesn’t Hagrid come soon?”

“After Uncle Vernon cracks and takes us to the island,” Harry explained. “It’s a couple days, yet.”

“I wonder what he’ll make of me,” Scott mused. “Harry Potter isn’t supposed to have a cousin.”

“So you _are_ my cousin?” Harry had thought that was the case, even though it was technically impossible.

“Not really. The shape has never had to admit that I exist before now. So it created a history based on my relationship to you: some kind of distant cousin. I’m from your dad’s side.”

“And people will just remember that I had an aunt who isn’t real?”

“Or an uncle! It’s probably best not to ask a lot of questions, though. Nobody’s memories will extend very far. They can take me at face value and ‘remember’ that I’m your cousin in some capacity, but asking anyone who should have known my parents to reminisce might confuse them. Or, maybe not.”

Which created an entirely different question. “Okay, but, and no offence, I’ve known Ron and Hermione a lot longer. Why aren’t they here? Shouldn’t Hermione, like, be my sister?”

“They already have families and histories. I’m here because I didn’t belong anywhere.”

Harry wondered if perhaps he and Scott weren’t so alone, then. “You think they remember the… future? Real past?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I could go check.”

“Could you?” Harry said eagerly. “Maybe we can find some way to meet before school starts.”

They could devise a way to handle Quirrell before he went anywhere near the Stone, and then go from there. With Scott’s ability to travel, and Harry’s upcoming inheritance, they could start collecting Horcruxes early. Scott could get rid of Riddle Sr.’s bones, make Pettigrew disappear, hell, even assassinate Umbridge. The possibilities were dizzying.

A sudden thought dropped Harry’s heart into his stomach. “We have to get Sirius out of Azkaban. We have to get him out of there, as quick as we can,” he said urgently, gripping Scott’s arm. He couldn’t stand the thought of his godfather being in there for a second longer than necessary.

Scott frowned. “Legally? We can grab Pettigrew for proof and that might spring Sirius. Or, we can do it the hard way. I could talk to Lil.”

Harry hesitated. He didn’t have much faith in the Ministry to free Sirius even when presented evidence of his innocence. But if they broke Sirius out of Azkaban using Scott and Lila’s particular skill sets, then Sirius would be stuck in Grimmauld again, a permanent fugitive.

“…We can try legal first, probably.” Harry wanted to think about it some more. “Go see if everyone else remembers things, they’ll have some ideas, too.”

“We may be on our own,” Scott cautioned. “At least until you decide to tell them.”

Harry couldn’t even imagine how _that_ conversation might go. He fervently hoped that he and Scott were not alone in their remembrance. “Well… Go see.”

Scott grimaced. “I don’t know if I can work an aperture at this age. Give me a minute.”

It took him about twenty to stabilise an aperture, and about ten more to enlarge it to the point he could pass through it. Harry watched Scott struggle with a mixture of impatience and anticipation that left him fidgeting in his seat, unable to be still. When Scott vanished, Harry remained at the playground rather than return to Privet Drive, trying to organise his thoughts. The developments of the day were overwhelming.

He was left with few certainties, and endless possibilities that both tempted and terrified.


	24. Closer to a Memory

**24**

**Closer to a Memory**

\---

 _“I propose the following: if the shape_  
 _can alter memory, then our understanding_  
 _of memory must change. Instead of a record_  
 _of our own perspectives, unique and created_  
 _by how we perceive causation, memory can't_  
 _be so confined. To see it that way would imply_  
 _that the shape changes our remembrance_  
 _intentionally, and with a skill beyond any_  
 _surgeon. But I don't believe that to be true._  
  
_Altered memories are simply a by-product._  
 _Reality transforms with the shape; these_  
 _transformations write themselves in our minds,_  
 _automatically. To change the root, is to change_  
 _the leaves. So, it follows that our memories are_  
 _influenced by us, but not created by us, nor_  
 _dependent on individual perspective. We all_  
 _translate the pages we are given in different_  
 _ways, but read from the same book.”_

 _—_ Cecil DuMont, _Inviolate: Forgotten Sciences of  
                        the Shape and the Modern Monopoly of Thought_  

\--- 

The book she was reading was not quite involving enough.

Typically, Hermione did not suffer much difficulty losing herself in a novel — or anything written, really, it didn't have to be fiction. Words were her speciality, a world she understood and connected to on a fundamental level. Escape through the vector of books had allowed her to survive primary school, a pen and ink shield against the harsh reality of the social strata and her place within it. In retrospect, she thought she must have been a truly insufferable child to have failed to connect with even the other outcasts. Or perhaps she had been consistently unlucky.

Hogwarts had changed all of that. It had taken a little time to happen, but soon enough she'd gained the truest friends a girl could ever wish for. And, as they had grown together, she had begun to hope that her luck had changed so thoroughly that one of those friends might become something more.

He had, eventually. Ron had given her some wonderful memories. Which was good, as they were all she had left.

She lowered her book and stared hollowly at the coat of arms above the great stone fireplace that dominated the far wall of the manor's sitting room. It was a fireplace big enough to burn a body, she morbidly considered, and probably had. Malfoy Manor was full of secrets, all of them unpleasant.

And it was her Manor, after all. Hermione Granger-Malfoy must have owned at least half. It was right there in her name.

In reality, she knew that she owned nothing. She was little better than the furnishings around her, another prize possession for the master of the house. She belonged to the son, not the senior (bad as it all was, it could have been even worse), but the Manor was a family collection. She had been added to the rest of the curios through the machinations of a Ministry far past the point of insanity. Utter, incomprehensible insanity.

A Marriage Law! The madness, the inhumanity, the trespasses against civil rights, the repudiation of the most basic liberties and human dignity! It could not be borne. Most days she could scarcely comprehend how a rational world could allow such a thing. Then her knowledge of history caught up to her outrage, and she remembered that far worse things had been allowed to happen. It was scant comfort. It was all she could do to bottle up her indignity, and keep the uneasy peace.

In a perverse sort of equality, at least Muggle-born men had also been treated like chattel by the pure-bloods desperate to avoid losing what little control they had over spousal arrangements. They _all_ had to choose, or the Ministry would choose for them. The fact that the choosers were pure-bloods had to be a purposeful attempt by a corrupt regime to placate its wealthiest members, even as it forced them into matrimony with those they viewed as inferior at best and mere animals at worst.

Did they not see how draconian it all was, how unfair, unprincipled, _untenable?_ Those cursed fascists in office didn't care about the human cost, the barbarity, the ludicrous _absurdity_ of the entire affair. It was so illogical it just made her want to _scream._

She swallowed her freshly bubbling indignation when Draco walked into the room. He nodded coolly towards her on his way to the rear stairwell. She did not return the gesture, watching dispassionately as he went, her features impassive.

Gone were his sneers and general aura of contempt. He treated her with a cold civility, distant but generally polite. He was fairly indifferent to how she spent her time. She didn't know for certain, but she speculated that he had used her to dodge out of another arranged marriage, perhaps to someone he couldn't ignore. So he had what he'd wanted, and there was little further use for her, even as a target of scorn. He probably didn't even remember he was married until he saw her on occasion.

He didn't have _everything_ he wanted, though, she reflected vindictively. She had never gone to his bed. But that small kernel of victory was lessened by the fact that he had hardly _tried_ to bring her into his bed. He'd made some half-hearted suggestions on their wedding night, but he didn't really want her for sex. No doubt he had another woman, probably more than one, for that. No, Hermione knew that, beyond whatever motivation he might have had to escape a different Marriage Law victim, she represented one last, spiteful blow against Harry, and against Ron.

Draco had held the power to take away Harry's best friend and entrap Ron's love. So he did it, of course. She doubted he'd ever entertained second thoughts before, during or after the process. Petty vengeance was less of a consideration for the Malfoys than it was a standard impulse to be indulged.

Thinking of Ron and Harry brought back the waves of loneliness and deep despair. She dropped her book upon her lap and passed a hand over her eyes, fighting back helpless tears. She wanted so badly to be free of the whole mess. But what would be the point of escaping if she would just be found again? The law was the law, and she hadn't been able to change it, despite… Well, she couldn't recall any specific examples, but she was sure she had tried.

Harry might be able to protect her, at least for a time. He had married a pure-blood despite the Law. Even a Ministry gone mad could not deny the triumphant hero his chosen bride: no one told Harry he couldn't marry Ginny, not with his fame and public support at an all-time high. For once, his name had worked for him. Ron and Hermione were lesser known, always had been. They lacked the same protections.

Hermione didn't know who Ron was married to, if he was. She assumed so; it was the law, after all. She hoped it was someone sweet, and kind, who could handle his temper, bolster his confidence, and value him for who he was.

At least Harry had Ginny. In her best moments, Hermione was able to be happy for them. She frowned slightly, thinking about Harry's sway with the public. Why hadn't he been able to help her? With his money and prestige, surely he could have done _something_. She would have had ideas, public relations tactics, governmental loopholes she could research. It didn't seem right. Harry had always jumped to her defence before. It was in his nature.

Perhaps he _had_ tried, and she just couldn't remember, given all the fuss and her state of mind. Come to think of it, she couldn't even remember how Harry had defeated Voldemort. She must have blocked it out: as soon as the question occurred to her, bits and pieces of that night began to return. She recalled a great battle in a forest, all flashing light and dark swathes. There, Riddle had been struck down at last.

Had it truly been so simple? She shook herself. Perhaps spending so much of her time removed from reality was beginning to affect her. She decided to take a walk in the garden, one of her frequent pastimes. The garden was tended by the house-elves, and none of the Malfoys made much use of it. It was an excellent place to find her preferred state of solitude.

The garden path was as perfectly manicured as everything else about the Manor. Money bought cleanliness and order, among other things. Like her, apparently. She quashed the thought and pressed deeper into the hedges. There, beneath the arched branches, was the closest thing to tranquillity she had found since the Law had passed.

It had been forced upon her, that was true enough, but she still felt as if she had failed. Not just Harry and Ron, but herself. She was the bright one, the one who could find a way out of situations that required more than bravery. If anyone could discover a way around the Law, or, barring that, a way to escape the Manor cleanly, it would be her. That wasn't egotism, it was simple fact. Solving such problems had been her purpose ever since two reckless boys had saved her from a troll.

So why _hadn't_ she escaped? Even protections as mighty as those surrounding the Manor could be breached more easily from within. A single shopping trip to Diagon Alley, one visit to her parents — little more would be required to allow her to disappear. Yet, she sat, mired in self-pity. She felt a wave of bitter disappointment wash over her. She was better than she had been acting. She didn't need to escape into books, she needed to escape to the outside world!

She had no idea why she had been so inactive, downright _passive_ , in her handling of the situation. But she resolved that would change. Starting immediately, she would do whatever she had to in order to return to Ron. They could run away to Australia, or America. They could live like Muggles if they had to. It would be hard for Ron, at first, but in time he could be taught everything he needed to know. She began tallying a mental list of the most vital things he would need to memorise in order to pass as a Muggle effectively, and then noted that there would be some other, different cultural considerations if they integrated into American society.

She stopped, thought about what she was doing, and smiled. _That_ was more like it. She was herself again. Hermione Granger was a force to be reckoned with. She had simply forgotten herself for a time.

Yes, integrating into America. Most British pure-bloods had little to do with American wizarding society, almost entirely Muggle-born as it was. She and Ron could be safe there. It would be easy enough to configure a method of communicating with Harry and the rest of the Weasleys. And she had known someone… Someone she associated with that word, 'integrating'…

Well. It would come to her, eventually.

Sections of the garden were almost like a maze, though only in the sense there were hedge walls that couldn't be seen over. Everything was neatly laid out along the paths, and there was no danger of becoming lost. She passed by a marble bench, deciding she would rather stroll and think, and crossed over a small ornamental bridge. On the other side, four hedges lined an intersection on the pathway. Randomly, she stepped to the left, which was the way to the orchids.

She immediately recoiled, one hand groping for her wand, when she almost ran into the looming form of a person standing there — a person with a weapon.

The gun barrel which nearly stopped her heart lowered, revealing a familiar, and somewhat sheepish, visage. “Did I scare you?” he said.

Oh, damn it all. It was just Scott.

Hermione dropped her hands to her sides, still trembling, though it was more from embarrassment and anger than shock. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, not trusting herself to answer right away. “You,” she began, shakily. She shut her mouth and took another deep breath, this time through her nose, and tried again. “You hulking, inconsiderate lout! What are you doing, lurking around corners, giving me such a fright? How did you even get in here?” When Scott quirked an eyebrow at her, she sighed. “Silly question. But, you startled me!”

“Us hulking, inconsiderate louts are known to do that,” he said.

She flushed slightly. Perhaps she had been a bit harsh on him, but he had just about scared her half to death. “Well, I'm sorry, but you're quite tall, and the first thing I saw was your chest and a gun barrel!”

“I wasn't sure it was you. I knew you were in here, somewhere, but it could have been Malfoy,” Scott explained.

“And you were prepared to, what? Shoot him?”

Scott gestured towards the Manor. “And deprive you of all this?”

Becoming a widow, courtesy of Scott, would be one way to fix the problem, she supposed. A rather awful way. It wasn't as if she hadn't wished death on Draco several times already, given what he had done. However, whilst she wouldn't shed a tear should something happen to her husband, premeditated murder was a step further than she was willing to go.

“I doubt I'd miss it. You can put that away,” she told Scott, indicating his firearm. “We're alone out here.”

“This deep into enemy territory? I'll keep it out, thanks.”

She rolled her eyes. “We're not at war, any longer. If you get caught, you might be charged for trespassing. Shoot someone, and that's attempted murder.”

“Like it would be _attempted_ ,” he scoffed.

“Of course, yes, you never miss, you're the best murderer ever, and so on. What are you doing here?”

“Gee, I'm happy to see you, too.”

She sighed again, wilting a bit. After a moment, she reached out and took his hand, squeezing it with rediscovered affection. “I _am_ happy to see you. I'm sorry, I'm not in the best of moods.”

“I don't know how you could be.” Scott looked up at the Manor with an expression of distaste. “What do you say I torch this place and take you home?”

A tempting offer, indeed. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It isn't?” Scott seemed genuinely surprised.

“I…” Hermione paused. Was it not? She had been so certain about the complexity of the details that kept her trapped under the Marriage Law, but they had become vague in her mind. No doubt it would take a while to sort it all out, and who knew how much time she had with Scott. “I don't have time to explain it all. Just, please don't make things worse.”

“I don't know what's going on, I wasn't even at your wedding,” Scott complained.

“Of course you weren't. No one was.” Even Hermione's parents had not been allowed to attend, being Muggles. It was strange, though, that she hadn't had any say in that at all. The wizarding world wasn't _that_ backward, was it? Had she no recourse?

“Did you at least have a cake? Is there any left?”

Either Scott was trying to make her laugh, or he had finally lost his tenuous hold on reality. Though, all of the sudden, previously unrealised questions assaulting her made her feel as if perhaps _she_ were the one going insane. There was a fog of war being lifted. Scott's presence was galvanising. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him, but she knew she had never been so glad to see him before.

“My memory seems to be impaired,” she said with a growing sense of urgency, “as well as some other aspects of my personality, I'm sure it's all related. I don't know if Draco has done something to me, or perhaps the Manor itself, but I need to leave, regardless of the Marriage Law.”

“'Marriage Law'?” Scott echoed, mouthing the words as if they tasted strange. “That explains where you're shacking up. I thought you were, like… undercover, maybe. Or here for tea. You're British, you'll take tea with anyone if they invite you.”

“Where on earth have you been?” she said impatiently. “Did you just decide to stop paying attention? The Ministry has completely exceeded its authority and forced pure-bloods to marry Muggle-borns in an attempt to repopulate and lower the rate of Squibs. Wizarding Britain has been shrinking for a long time, you know that. Part of that being their obvious propensity for the worst possible solutions.”

“What a messed up country,” Scott sighed. “This is some paperback bullshit, we're reaching fanfiction levels of self-serving stupidity at this point. _So_ fucking contrived.”

“You think I don't know that? It's _absurd,”_ Hermione hissed. “Someone in the upper offices clearly longs for a return to feudalism. I should have refused to begin with, consequences be damned. But I won't keep living here for a second longer than I have to. Now, can you take a message to Harry for me?”

“I can, yes.”

“Ask him if Grimmauld Place is still protected. If it is, I want to know if I can hide there for an indeterminate amount of time. Hopefully, not too long. I may have to flee the country.”

Scott nodded. “I can help with that, too, if you want. Or, I could dynamite this shitheap, and then the Ministry.”

“Don't be hasty, Guy Fawkes,” Hermione said dryly. “Rather than unleashing your inner arsonist, why don't you help me escape?”

“Fine. But I get to dynamite one public edifice of my choice.”

“Your terms are ridiculous, so are you, and we aren't even bargaining right now! Now, please go, I don't want to spend another second here that I don't have to.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “And… If you see Ron…”

Scott raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Tell him… Oh, never mind. I don't know what to say. What _can_ I say?” There was so much that had been left unspoken that she doubted any words could suffice after the time that had passed. “Do you know anything about his…?”

“Penis?”

Hermione blanched. “Wh—?! Why would you think _that_ would be the next word?! _Situation._ I was going to say sit— Oh, you are, you're _impossible_ , just go, I don't want to talk to you any more!”

“This isn't a very welcoming environment. I think you need to develop your skills as a hostess.”

“They hide me when they have visitors. Sometimes I'm not sure who my in-laws hate more: me, or Draco for marrying me.” Surely she had to be right about Draco dodging a different, more responsibility-laden marriage to some other Muggle-born. She wondered who the luckier woman was.

“Poor Hermione in her big, lonely castle, trapped with a brutish man,” Scott simpered.

She glared at him. “It's a Manor, and I don't need your pity.”

He grinned widely. “'Taaaaaaaale as ooooold as tiiiiiime…'” he began to sing.

Hermione loved the Disney animated films — not liked, _loved._ She was not impressed by the comparison. She had seen the one to which Scott was referring in the theatre, a rare Muggle moment with her parents. And the behaviour of the Malfoys was, even at their best, still far more ugly beneath the surface than the Beast had ever been.

Still, she couldn't quite suppress the smile brought about by Scott's exaggerated warbling. It felt too good to be around someone who tried to entertain her, again. “Oh, shut it, you prat. Now I remember why I didn't miss you.”

“Not even a little?” Scott sniffled, blinking back imaginary tears.

“…Perhaps very slight modicum,” she allowed. “Will you please go? I want to leave here.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Scott promised. “If Grimmauld has completely decayed in Sophie's absence, I'll come up with something. How about an apartment by the Thames? Think of all the jellied eels you could eat,” he enthused, as if that were a major selling point.

“No, thank you, I prefer my eels un-jellied. Or not at all, really.”

Scott wandered back off into the garden, presumably to disappear. He seemed to dislike opening apertures in front of people, which she thought probably had less to do with trade secrets than with his own sense of dramatic mystery. Or, perhaps not, but whatever the case was, she didn't know why he had to be by himself first. Maybe he just knew it would annoy her.

That would be like him, but no matter. She needed to consider her plans, build contingencies. If she were to simply disappear for awhile, she rather doubted that Draco would go looking for her. He would likely be relieved, or indifferent. In fact, were it entirely up to him, he'd probably not bother to report it. He already lived his life as if she weren't around, her departure would be more a convenience than anything. Lucius might worry for the family's reputation, but not for long, she wagered. Being forced to accept a Muggle-born into the fold had been the ultimate indignity for the Malfoy patriarch. He would likely view letting her go as being worth the embarrassment.

No, the government would be the real issue. And she was done accepting their authority.

A shadow fell across her, followed by footsteps. She rolled her eyes, wondering if Scott was having trouble with his mysterious apertures, and, more to the point, what he expected her to do about it. “Was there something else, or are you—” she turned, and was greeted by a very different visage than the one she had expected. Her mouth dropped open. “…Harry?”

***---~**~---***  

With a whoosh of air that sent her hair fluttering, Ginny slammed her bedroom door shut and leaned against it. She could feel her absolute humiliation in her burning cheeks, nearly bringing her to tears.

It wasn't fair. _She hadn't been ready!_

She abandoned the hard surface of the door and turned to the comfort of her bed, flinging herself onto the soft sheets and burying her glowing complexion into her pillow. The cool cloth was soothing, though not enough. She wished she could Transfigure it into a Time-Turner. That would be dead useful, and she didn't need more than a few minutes to fix everything.

She had known that Ron and the twins had been up to _something_ , even if they refused to tell her what. She'd heard them leave in the middle of the night, which, at least in the twins’ case, was not all that unusual. So when she'd traipsed down to breakfast in the morning, yawning widely and peering blearily out from behind the curtain of her brilliant red hair, she'd had nothing on her mind but the forthcoming meal.

She certainly hadn't expected _Harry Potter_ to be at the table.

Harry Potter! The saviour of the wizarding world, the mighty hero, the living legend, the… the skinny, black-haired boy with the amazing green eyes she had seen at the station. He'd seemed so alone, then. Now he was with Ron and the twins. They'd corrupt him before she even had a chance to say anything!

Not that she could say anything. Unless she counted the mortifying squeak she had unleashed, something akin to a mouse being squished. Scabbers made noises like the one she'd made when she saw Harry Potter in the kitchen with nary a warning. And there was only one chance to make a first impression.

If she could do it again, she would dress nicely, and be ever so polite, with dazzling manners and a pretty smile and maybe he would smile back! She'd be intelligent and charming, and have so many questions, and soon enough he would be her friend, too, not just Ron's. And it would be wonderful. He'd take her on adventures and tell her all about himself.

Oh, who was she fooling? She couldn't say a word to him, never mind be witty. He was _Harry Potter!_ She was a small red-haired girl from a big family without much money. The Minister would want to converse with Harry Potter, all the Aurors and the _Daily Prophet_ , Dumbledore and Quidditch stars. They would be his friends and confidantes. Not little Ginny Weasley. Not if she couldn't just _speak_ to him!

It wasn't that she lacked self-confidence entirely, she knew she was an all right sort, she had opinions and ideas, she could be interesting. None of that did her any bloody good when her body betrayed her, turning red as a tomato and squeezing her jaw shut with invisible force. She'd imagined talking to him for so long, and, now that she had the chance, she couldn't!

To top it all off, she'd been right rude, running out like that, and walking in not fully dressed in the first place. Her fury focussed on her brothers, abandoning its internal direction. If they'd had the simple courtesy to tell her that Harry Potter had been downstairs, the whole affair might have been avoided. It was like they _wanted_ her to make a fool of herself. Oh, that would be just like them, wouldn't it. The ruddy prats.

She'd be sure to get them back for it, but, in the meantime, she resolved to do better. Harry Potter would notice her, and she would speak to him, and they would be the best of friends and maybe even boyfriend and girlfriend, eventually, once they were a bit older. She didn't want to wait too long, though.

Well, she wasn't going to accomplish any of that feeling sorry for herself in her room. As she dressed, she tried to think of a good way to make up for her earlier embarrassment. Perhaps she could show Harry how good she was on a broomstick. She knew he liked watching her play, and had always taken pride in her Quidditch skills.

Except he'd never seen her fly. And the rest of her family didn't know she even could. So why had she thought that? Harry liked Quidditch, of course, and was an amazing Seeker. Or, he would be an amazing Seeker. She knew he would… Though, he'd never been on a team before and was even raised a Muggle, as she understood it, so…

She shook her head, wondering just how barmy the incident downstairs had left her. Such weird thoughts besieged her — almost like memories. She would be worried that she was finally confusing fantasy with reality, but she couldn't recall ever fantasising about playing Quidditch with Harry Potter. Adventuring, fighting Dark Lords, holding hands, sure, but not Quidditch. It was a very odd train of thought.

But not a bad one, all together. Flying might be just the thing to make Harry her friend. She'd just have to sneak into the shed again, and invite him. He looked like he could keep a secret (she knew he could, somehow).

Thus at least momentarily bolstered, she dressed herself as quickly as she could, pulled her door open, and strode out straight into someone standing there.

She stumbled back and almost fell to the floor, just catching herself on the edge of the door frame. She found herself bent over nearly double, resting on her heels and staring at an unfamiliar pair of trainers. Her heart sunk in her chest. Oh, no. Surely she hadn't just walked into Harry.

With great trepidation, her eyes travelled upwards until they met the person's face. Recognition sparked immediately, and she just about let go of the frame in relief.

It was only Scott.

“Were you eavesdropping out here?” she snapped, pulling herself up.

“Why? Were you talking to yourself?” he responded blandly.

“No! I was…” She stopped, not wanting to explain what had happened. “It's none of your business.”

“Yeah, probably not. Hey, have you seen Harry?”

“He was just at the table,” Ginny replied without thinking. Then, she frowned. “Wait, _'Harry'?_ Are you friends with him already?”

Scott squinted down at her. “I feel like you're setting me up for a joke, but I can't guess the punchline. Okay, I'll bite: yes, I'm friends with him already.”

“Great. Now you can tell him all sorts of lies about me, if you haven't already,” she huffed.

He pointed at her. “Hey, I was on your side when you didn't even know it. Who was dating Dean, again? Yeah, not me. Don't blame me for not being able to work around your baggage fast enough. I brought you up to Harry just about every goddamn day.”

She gaped at him. “What are you even talking about? Who's Dean?”

Scott dropped his hand and stared blankly back at her for a long, silent moment. “…He's a guy,” he said at last. “He's a guy who you… something. And it was a problem. For me. And possibly the universe. Maybe I should keep a journal…”

“You've finally gone completely 'round the twist, haven't you,” Ginny said ruefully.

“No, no. That's not what's happening here. I'm just delivering a message, because Harry wants to talk to you.”

A jolt of excitement shot through her. “He does?” she said weakly. After what had happened? She hoped he wanted to talk about something else. If he tried to apologise for startling her or something like that, she would just die. But, wait— “You just asked me if I'd seen Harry.”

“Right. Because he wants to talk to you. I didn't know if you'd run into him before I found you.”

Scott must have just arrived, which made sense, as she hadn't seen him in the kitchen with the others. He sometimes walked over to The Burrow from wherever it was he lived, she couldn't remember where that was, or why he came over, or how she had come to be on such informal speaking terms with a grown man. But, none of that mattered. Harry wanted to speak with her!

“Is he still in the kitchen?” she asked.

“No, he's out in the orchard. I don't know what he wants, but he was pretty tense. Hermione was there, too. Something must be up.” Scott shrugged, apparently unconcerned with whatever that something was.

Hermione being there put a bit of a damper on things. It wasn't the private conversation Ginny had hoped for, but she still brushed past Scott (thankfully, he didn't follow) and hurried out of the house, crossing the lawn and heading for the orchard. It was very pleasant out, and the dew from the grass soaked her feet as the air slowly heated with the sun. Her heart pounded in her chest, dizzy with anticipation.

Her bold flight lasted until she reached the trees. Hesitation took over, and she carefully wound her way around the trunks and branches until she saw Harry standing in the shade.

He looked tired, dark circles apparent beneath his eyes and the faint hint of his still-sparse stubble dotting his chin and upper lip. He was wearing clothes that were too big for him, giving him the appearance of being underfed again, even though she had seen him put on weight over years of Hogwarts feasts and Quidditch training. Except, had she? There were years, and there were none. He was younger, but not. She glanced down at herself and saw a different form than she had in the mirror of her bedroom, with breasts and hips and unfamiliar marks. There was a tiny scar on her left index finger, and she couldn't remember how she had come to have it. The Harry from the table was superimposed over the new Harry, older and more worn, blurring together and making her blink. Hermione stood just behind him, her stance worried, and she was the same as always, singular, unwavering in age.

Harry smiled tightly. “Ginny, it's all right,” he said gently. “Or, I think it's going to be.”

“We shouldn't have let Scott go,” Hermione fretted. “We don't know if he'll go to Ron.”

Harry sighed. “He has to. You saw him when we tried to explain, he forgot the second we were done talking. This thing is trying to stop him, I'm positive.”

“Thank goodness he's so hard to pin down. He's doing what he thinks is his job, regardless, which is a sort of comfort. I never thought I'd be grateful he's so stubborn.” Hermione worried at her lip. “When he finds Ron, what will we—”

“One step at a time,” Harry interrupted. “Gin, I can explain. Well… some of it, anyway.”

Ginny didn't know what was happening or who (when?) precisely this Harry was. But she remembered that she trusted him. “All right, Harry. What's all this?”

***---~**~---***  

**Scott steps out into the hallway, letting the door slide shut and seal behind him. The soft 'click' and subtle hum of the hermetic locks is familiar to him, almost a sort of comfort. The world behind each door could not intrude.**

**The halls of the Transferral have an odd, muffled acoustic quality to them. The ceilings seem a bit lower than natural and noise doesn't travel far in the partitioned sections, muted and dull. There is only the constant thrum of distant machinery, droning somewhere deep behind the walls and beneath the floor.**

**He takes a step and then pauses, unsure of his destination. Unsure of where he'd come from, actually. He turns back to look at the door he had just exited. Matte grey metal, featureless, without clue. He frowns, waving at the emitter. It doesn't respond.**

**He rolls his eyes, turning away. Fucking place was falling apart, per usual. He understands that Transversal Station is a massive expenditure, but, come on. It is _the_ major hub of travel. Someone could pay to fix the fucking 'mits when they broke.**

**Still, he should really remember what he was doing. The door directly across from him lights up. Instead of the standard designations, it scrolls only two words across the air.**

** Find Ron. **

**It's a pretty unusual objective, a little succinct for the bureaucratic tendencies of the Imperiarchy. But it's clear enough, and it's the direction he was looking for. He palms the door open and steps confidently through.**

***---~**~---***  

Ron's fingers dug into the upholstery with growing tension as he watched her from his perch. Some of the other students had probably noticed his fixation, he thought grimly. It was all a real laugh, he'd wager. But that was less important to him than the task which he had set himself. He had to ask Hermione to the Yule Ball. And he _was_ going to ask her. He just hadn't quite sussed out how.

She was assisting Harry with his homework over at the couches, meaning she was doing at least some of it. Harry had an impatient look on his face, probably wishing she would stop explaining how something was done and just do it for him. She would, eventually (she couldn't help herself), but not before she did her best to aid his comprehension. That wasn't what Harry wanted, but it was what he was going to get until she became frustrated enough with his inability (unwillingness) to understand, and took over.

Ron had been on the receiving end of that kind of help more times than he could remember. Observing it from the outside made him think that perhaps he and Harry relied on her too much. It wasn't fair to expect her to do their revision at least partially and then all of hers, too. Even if she seemed to enjoy it.

He didn't understand that side of her. He secretly admired it, but could never summon that level of academic interest. He understood one thing about her, though: she wanted him to ask her to the Ball.

That understanding was in direct contrast to his previous position of doubt, which he had attempted to mask with false indifference. But, that morning, he had awoken from a dream that had seemed so intense, so real, that in the moment of breaking consciousness he had felt as if he were going into a dream instead of coming out of one. He couldn't remember the details, left with haunting after-images and unintelligible segments of conversation.

Despite its unclear nature, his dream had bestowed upon him an inexplicable certainty: Hermione wanted him to ask her to the Ball. He knew it with the surety of hindsight, a truth obvious only in retrospective. Which didn't make much sense, but he'd take whatever sources of confidence he could find, even if, in this case, it meant he was completely mental.

So, all he had to do was think of the proper way to ask her, right? Couldn't be too difficult. Maybe if he—

“The cycle is shortening,” a voice mused from the chair next to Ron's, jolting him from his thoughts.

Ron turned his head to glare at the intrusion, intent on giving whoever had startled him a piece of his mind. He was trying to think, damn it! But the unwelcome voice proved to have emerged from a familiar head sporting an unkempt top of straw-blond hair. Ron made a face and subsided back into his seat.

It was only Scott, the bugger.

Ron wasn't going to waste his breath having a go at Scott. He'd been watching Hermione do just that for years. “What's that?” he said disinterestedly. Hopefully, Scott would pick up on Ron's half-hearted replies and go bother someone else.

“This thing we're in. This cycle, though I don't think that's the right word. Unique occurrences may have obvious repetition, but that doesn't necessarily evince they are cyclical in nature.”

Ron turned to look at him, incredulous. “What?” he said.

Scott ignored him. “I'm not where I was before, but I haven't gone anywhere. We're narrowing it down, whatever 'it' is, whittling away. The decimal shifts with each new instance, like a countdown, the number is approaching a real integer. But, every decimal place erases the previous digits… I don't recall where I was, or where I'm going, but I _am_ going, and iteration brings us closer to the true paradigm.”

Usually, it was Harry who put up with that kind of rubbish. “Oh, I thought you were talking to me,” Ron said, turning away.

“I am if you're listening.”

“What's the point?” Ron sighed, wishing Scott would just shut it or go away. Ron had Hermione to think about.

“I know something is wrong. But I don't know what, or, as I suspect, I can't _remember_ what. I've been here before.”

“You've been to Hogwarts lots of times, mate,” Ron said dryly. “At least in body, your head is anyone's guess.”

“Have I, though? Here, yes, but _now?_ I'm trying to think about it and I run into walls, there's nothing to remember, half the time, or it comes to me at the last second and still doesn't really fit.” Scott stared into the fireplace. “This may be invention. This may be a cage. This is wrong. I was somewhere else, a minute ago.”

“Yeah, you were standing over there,” Ron told him. He started to raise his hand to point, and then he dropped it, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. Scott hadn't been over there, actually. Where had the Kharadjai been? And what was a Kharadjai?

Scott watched Ron's aborted attempt at indication with detachment. “This is wrong,” he repeated. “I know that much.”

Ron began mentally assembling a refutation of Scott's daft assertion (probably just a, 'shut it, you nutter'), but then he thought about his dream, and the way it seemed to take over his reality. He couldn't entirely dismiss the overall feeling of strangeness that had descended over the day. “Did you see a Grim in your bacon?” he said with attempted levity, though he couldn't quite make himself mean it.

Scott did not reply, returning to his study of the fireplace.

Ron almost took the opportunity to drop the entire mess and watch Hermione again. Almost. He couldn't quite shake the disquiet that Scott's words had created, stirring remnants of his clinging dream. He tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair a few times, debating whether he really wanted to encourage Scott. Then he said, “What do you think it is?”

Scott grunted in disgust. “If I knew, I wouldn't be talking to myself.”

“Yeah, enjoy your company, too, mate.”

“So this _is_ considered a conversation.”

“Not if it was anyone but you, probably. You may be slightly different, but I reckon you knew that.”

Scott shook his head, though it didn't seem to be in response to Ron's jab. “This sense of recursion is not natural. I believe any recurrence is a sign of the same pattern being applied. It's not that we've done this day already: it's that we never did this day, in this fashion. The shape tells me that what I think is happening is not what is happening.”

Ron raised his eyebrows, nonplussed. “So what does that mean?”

“It means…” Scott pursed his lips. “It means this isn't…”

“Real?” Ron finished, and the disorientating sensation of his dream stole back over him, tilting the world strangely. He must have still been dreaming, it was the only thing that made sense.

Scott made a quiet noise of frustration. “What would that imply? If this isn't real, if we accept that this is… What? Some kind of enforced solipsism? If we… But, wait, didn't I just tell Harry…”

Ron glanced over towards Harry, but his friend was gone, as was Hermione. In fact, almost everyone was gone. The common room had suddenly emptied, leaving only a few vague faces moving in the distant corners. They seemed to disappear at the periphery of his vision, fading into the shadows. A chill came over him.

Scott's eyes were unfocussed. “I remember that. And there's an orchard, too, and a garden. Multiple steps, or tiers, this is a complicated structure. This _is_ a cage. But I've been biting at the bars. I see. I _see.”_

Ron was thoroughly unnerved. The common room was now completely barren. Even the couches by the fire had disappeared, and the fire itself was low. There were no longer any staircases to the upper dormitories. “What the bloody hell is going on?” he said unsteadily.

Scott looked over at him, face serious. “I have to report this. Stay here and wait for Harry. I'll be back as soon as I let my superiors know what's happening.”

“What? Wait! Come on, don't leave me!” Ron pleaded. The edges of the room had grown blurry, as if there were something outside that was slowly devouring the entire tower and all the light within it.

“I have to go, man. Don't worry, this should stabilise after I'm gone. I have to report this.”

“But, what do I do if—”

Scott jumped up and strode through an aperture before Ron could finish his question.

Ron had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that he didn't like it. He drew his wand and stood, wanting to be able to rotate to view the entire room, or what was left of it. He didn't _think_ Scott would just leave him to die, but it also didn't seem like a very safe situation.

“Fucking brilliant,” Ron muttered to himself, keeping his wand up as he slowly turned around. “Now what?”

“Ron?”

He spun towards the sound of a voice; it took half a second for his brain to recognise it as Harry's. “Harry?”

“Ron!” That was Hermione. She appeared from seemingly nowhere, near where the portal entrance would usually be. She rushed forward, and threw her arms around him.

“Hermione,” he stammered, taken aback. Just minutes before he'd been thinking about asking her to the Yule Ball. Now she was visibly older, prettier than ever, with stress stamped across her features. “What's going on?”

“Thank God we found you,” she sighed, relaxing a little in his arms. “We waited for Scott to move forward, and hoped for the best.”

“We're still here, though,” Harry said, coming up behind her. Ginny was with him. She was wearing clothes that Ron hadn't seen on her in years, though they somehow still fit. Harry looked like he was wearing a shirt made for someone twice his size, and his trousers were cinched tight with an enormous belt. “Glad to see you in one piece, mate.”

“Yeah, you too,” Ron said genuinely, though he still had no idea what was going on. He was beginning to understand that he wasn't at Hogwarts, and probably never had been.

“I guess this wasn't the real end,” Ginny said tightly, her worried eyes scanning the darkened shell of a room.

Hermione pulled away from Ron, still gripping his hands. “But Scott was here. Once we explain things to Ron, we'll move on. What's the last thing you remember?” she asked, looking up at Ron.

“I was going to try and ask you to the Yule Ball,” he admitted, and it already felt like an old memory, even if it had happened moments ago.

Her eyes brightened. “Oh!” she said softly, her lips curving upwards. “And how did that go?”

“Scott started spouting a load of bollocks and I got distracted.”

“Oh,” she said flatly. “So much for changing history. I mean, not really, but it would have been interesting to see the result, nonetheless.”

“We were at Grimmauld. Try to remember,” Harry urged. “We got back from Hogwarts and then… Something happened.”

Grimmauld? Ron visualised the darkened halls and grimy décor of the place he knew well. In his mind he saw the kitchen where they had discussed many things — like Horcruxes. They'd found one of them, in Hogwarts, in the Room. He remembered. They came back from their mission, they were going to kill the diadem… Nothing. Nothing came after.

“I remember we were going to take care of the Horcrux, but I can't remember anything after that,” Ron said.

“Same here,” Harry told him. “I think it did something to us.”

Ron looked around at the blurry, half-finished common room. “Are we inside of it? Is that what this is?”

“Not literally, I don't think,” Hermione said. “It's a kind of mental trap. We were all stuck in our own… dreams, I suppose we can call them.”

“You weren't at Hogwarts?”

“No. We all had different dreams. Mine was very unpleasant,” Hermione said with a small shudder.

“Which is weird, isn't it?” Harry mused. “Mine was like a good dream.”

“Mine really happened, sort of,” Ginny said.

“Yeah, mine too,” Ron added. “Except for…”

“Scott?” Harry guessed. “Same here. He's the reason I snapped out of it. I sent him to go check on you and Hermione, since it was, um, we were back. Back before I found out I was a wizard, it was like time travel. And I wanted to see what you were doing, if you remembered the future like I did. So I sent Scott off, and I guess he went into Hermione's dream, but, when he didn't come back, I started to… I, it was like it didn't make sense anymore. I even forgot about him for a bit, then I remembered, and then I remembered the _real_ past, without him in it, because it was still all mixed up.”

Ron frowned, confused. “You knew he wasn't really there?”

“No, I… I'm not explaining very well. It was so strange. But, when he was gone, I knew he didn't belong there and that he wasn't really a part of it. The way my memories kept changing, they kept trying to fit him in. The diadem seemed to think he was there originally, it was like it wasn't entirely my dream, it was Scott's, too, his idea of a replay, and without him the diadem didn't know what to do about it.” Harry frowned. “I don't think he was supposed to be able to leave.”

Hermione nodded. “I'm sure he wasn't. The diadem can't work on him the way it does us, just like the locket.”

“He still forgot. He said he understood, then he forgot all about it afterwards,” Harry pointed out.

“I have a theory,” Hermione said, unsurprisingly. “We are progressing because the diadem is fighting with Scott. He broke out of the dream with you, which I'm not even sure was his original dream. Let's suppose it wasn't; perhaps he was doing something else before he went into yours.”

“Why would he go into mine, though? Wouldn't the diadem just give him a different one if he were able to leave?”

“Well… What if it was a work dream?” Hermione conjectured. “What if he was dreaming about his job, then… Then he would go to you, to our universe, because that's his mission. And his aperture took him to you, right through the magic. He's our connection. We sent him to Ron, even. I doubt he realises what he's doing. The diadem seems to be making him forget, but has been unable to lock him in place.”

“When I understood that my memories weren't real, my whole dream fell apart,” Harry said. He gestured at the partially disintegrated surrounds. “Sort of like this. Then I was in Hermione's.”

“You can see it's already happening here,” Hermione said.

Sure enough, the space was growing dimmer. The stone walls were replaced by vague barriers of indeterminate material, and the corners had been swallowed by shadow. There was no longer any resemblance to the common room.

“This is just as spooky as last time,” Ginny said, crossing her arms uneasily.

“The diadem _must_ be trying to stop Scott.” Hermione leaned against Ron's chest as the room turned dark, and the blackness fell over all of them. “Whatever is next, it will be for him.”

Ron stared out into nothing. He couldn't even see Hermione's hair right below his chin anymore. The light was gone, and the darkness was complete and utterly still. “This is supposed to happen, right?” he said, trying to keep calm.

Harry's voice came from somewhere to Ron's left. “Yeah. It's bloody awful, though. Every time.”

Ron could no longer feel Hermione's presence. There was absolute silence and darkness, a sensory deprivation of total completeness. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped that it was just a transition, nothing permanent. He had a brief falling sensation, and then the faintest breeze tickled his scalp.

He thought he could hear the ocean.


	25. There Is None

**25**

**There Is None**

\---

 _And the passage of that reaping  
Left parted hearts and sundered weeping  
Great tracts of ruin, reft of seed  
Vast shoals of mourning, mud and reed  
Lo, thy cup spills forth with anguish  
Thy soul lies choked with boundless need  
_  
—Susanna B. Aether, _Still Lost, Constantia_  
(Verse XII: lines 190—195)

\---

Harry stood, facing the ocean.

He blinked, disoriented by the sudden transition. His trainers sank into the wet sand, pushing it up around the edges, creating sodden prints. Before him was a blank, grey horizon below heavy cloud cover. Other than the gentle rush of the waves, all was silent; not even birds wheeled above.

The water was dark, reflecting the clouds, though enough sunlight slipped through the ominous weather to light the beach with a diffuse illumination. In fact, it seemed the light had no central source; shadows were pale and undefined, everything had an unvarying dullness. The palette shifted towards monochrome, leaching the brightness from sand and surf.

At first, Harry thought he was seeing foam in between the breakers. After a moment, he realised the swells were thick with debris: he could see scattered wads of cloth, bits of wood, all sorts of other unidentifiable rubbish that bobbed and sank, collecting in matted clumps. There were metal constructions set at the edge of the water, angular beams stuck together in spiky-looking configurations, the purpose of which escaped him. The colour of it all didn't quite match the sky. He looked down at his feet, and saw that the water was tinted red.

The wind blowing in over the ocean lulled, and that was when the smell hit him.

He gagged, clapping a hand over his mouth. The putrid stench was indescribable, a powerful odour of bloated rot and decay, thick and suffocating. He spit onto the sand, bending over, trying to catch his breath where there seemed to be no air. He pulled his shirt up over his nose. It barely helped, but it was enough to keep him from vomiting. The sea stank of copper. Eyes watering, he turned away from it.

The sight that greeted him was a horror beyond immediate comprehension. Accordingly, he looked only at one small portion of it. Five feet away, leaning against one of the strange things made of crossed metal beams, was a corpse. Harry was certain it was a corpse, and not anything alive, as although the body was staring back at him, it had no eyelids. There were fleshy pockmarks in the corpse's cheeks where it was apparent something had been pecking at it. Most of its lower lip was gone, baring blackened teeth in a hideous imitation of a partial grin.

The corpse wasn't the first one Harry had seen, though he'd never seen one in such a condition. The dead man propped up against the rusted girder had been there for some time. Harry let his eyes trail downwards, examining the rest of it with numb detachment. The corpse was wearing a tattered uniform that Harry didn't recognise, and there were several obvious bullet holes in the chest. The exact point at which the water reached its peak was marked by a wet circle around the corpse's midsection; its boots dripped water, waiting for the next wave.

Harry took a half-step backwards. He pressed his shirt more firmly to his face. Taking a shallow breath, he allowed himself to take in the rest of his surroundings.

The dead were piled like mounds of earth, lumped in putrid heaps taller than Harry in some places. There must have been thousands of bodies, eyes open, mouths parted, stiff in the sun or bloated in the surf. Some stared at nothing, some appeared to sleep. Those not raised on top of others were often indistinct shapes covered in sand, made terrible by the details: a hand poking out; the imprint of a face; dry, wispy hair fluttering in the breeze. There were distended ones, filling with gas. Others were shrivelled, skin cracking, flaking away. Some looked as if they had just arrived, discarded by some vast carrion bird.

It was a mosaic of mottled flesh: sun-baked yellow feet; swollen purple faces; blackened swathes of bruises and rot; like bad bananas, like compost in the heat. The colours clashed on necks and ankles, smeared across rigoured backs, pressed on pale bellies. Struggles left their singular marks; pain was painted. Fractured ribs tore out through sloughing skin; joints twisted backwards, or fragmented through the muscle. There was a man face-down in the tide with both his legs kinked like wire, splintered bone tearing through his trousers like thorns.

Rivulets of blood and other effluvium trickled down to join the ocean, carving red furrows in the sand. The larger piles left wide, coursing stains that swallowed up the lesser streams. Smaller groups of bodies soaked the ground around themselves with their fluids, creating bloody tide pools. Remnants of life spilled and ran and puddled, drying into patches of rusty sand or tinting the ocean.

It was a slaughterhouse, humanity rendered into so much spoiled meat. And it went on along the shoreline until Harry could see no further.

He clenched his teeth and fought against the bile but, at last, his stomach had its way. He emptied it into the waves, ribs aching as he heaved and heaved until he felt utterly spent. He stayed there, bent down with his hands on his knees, spitting into the sand until the dizziness cleared. As he watched the water lap away his sickness, he wondered what he could have eaten in a dream.

The pain brought a little lucidity. He was alone, missing his friends, and surrounded by what looked like an impromptu mass grave. Straightening up, he wavered when confronted once more by the stench. Shirt in place, he scanned the horizon.

The beach ran inland into a line of cliffs, distant and foreboding. It looked as if there were structures set into it, drab concrete bunkers and defensive walls. He hesitated. Perhaps whatever had put all the bodies on the beach (and maybe killed them in the first place) was up there. He didn't know a whole lot about Muggle wars, but he knew a firing position when he saw one that obvious. If there was someone in the bunkers, they might mow him down as soon as he was close enough to distinguish from the dead.

But what choice did he have? The ocean seemed to go on forever, as did the beach. And he was willing to risk a lot to get off the beach. The smell churned his empty stomach and the sights were more than he could process. To his right were three severed legs, none of them matching (one was clearly a child's, a tiny blue sock still on the foot). A bright glint from a nearby pile caught his eye: it was the reflection from a wedding ring on a hand protruding between two other corpses, the rest of its owner unseen. At the foot of the mound was a man staring sightlessly at the sky. The back of his head had shattered completely, and the skin of his face was stretched out to the sides, rubbery, past where it would have curved with his skull, as if it were a mask that no longer fit correctly.

Harry started walking, wending his way between the mounds on the narrow paths. They weren't entirely unobstructed — he had to step his way over a body, on occasion. Several minutes into his grim march he came across the scorched remnants of a tank, wedged between two tall corpse piles like a makeshift barricade. He had to detour, but eventually found his way around.

He soon saw that he had been wrong about the composition of the bodies: they weren't all human. There were stranger shapes among the dead, scales and horns and skulls that were too long in the face. A blue-skinned arm, a plated head. They were rare, but noticeable. There were other things, too, jumbled in with the endless bodies. Cars and planes, fragments of broken machinery. There was a helicopter with twisted blades, the pilots still strapped inside the cracked cockpit. Vast shapes loomed in the distance, partially obscured by fog. He thought one of them was a ship run aground; others were completely alien in their strangely angled silhouettes. And, still, nothing made a sound.

The further he travelled from the ocean, the less clustered the corpses became. The piles were less vertical, the air a bit brighter. Soon, there were no more mounds and the ground was carpeted with single bodies, only occasionally overlapping. He carefully moved around them, sometimes stumbling over torsos or accidentally stepping on a hand or leg. His foot caught on the neck of a woman who was missing the top half of her skull, the edges alternately pulpy and jagged and the inside scooped nearly empty. Her eyes were open, but rolled back so far only the whites were visible. After that, he stopped looking closely at them.

About two-thirds of the way to the cliffs, the distribution of the bodies had become thin enough that he could walk without watching his feet. The fog was beginning to thin as he went higher. Just ahead there was a sandy ridge, an artificial hummock that ran in both directions. It was surmounted by a barrier of barbed wire, most of which had been destroyed.

Panting, he pushed himself up to the top and paused, standing in a gap in the wire. Behind him, most of the larger mounds were nothing but dark outlines in the fog. From his elevated position, he scanned the sand and saw there were no footprints save his own, not a single sign of movement or battle. It was as if all the numberless dead had been imported from elsewhere, carelessly cast onto the beach.

On the other side of the sand hill, the ground continued to slope upwards towards the cliffs. Corpses were even more sparse, he noted with relief. Then he froze, as something caught his eye. There, sprawled on the sand at the foot of the hill, was a Death Eater. The black robes and white mask were unmistakable.

He fumbled for his wand. Nothing else on the beach had been alive, but he wasn't taking any chances.

 _“Expelliarmus!”_ he hissed. The jet of light shot out and impacted the body against its chest, producing a hollow sound. The corpse shook slightly with the impact, but otherwise remained still.

He lowered his wand, not sure what had driven him to do that. He'd walked through a war's worth of corpses without incident; there was no reason the Death Eater would be any more animated.

“HELLO?” a voice shouted, echoing out from Harry's left.

He was so startled that he nearly lost his footing. He reached out to steady himself and received a fistful of barbed wire for his effort. He swore, quickly withdrawing his hand and glancing at it. His palm was lacerated fairly badly, blood already streaming down his shirt sleeve.

No time for that. He pressed the flat of his injured hand into his trousers and pointed his wand in the direction of the voice. “WHO'S THERE?” he yelled back.

Two blurry shapes emerged from the fog, hurrying towards him. Harry's glasses were speckled with water, sand, and probably some worse things. He squinted, trying to make out details.

The one to the right waved their arms over their head. “IT'S HERMIONE! PLEASE DON'T CAST!” she called.

They grew close enough that he could see the second person had long, red hair, and he literally shook with relief, lowering his trembling wand hand. He leaned against the incline and slid the rest of the way down, nearly falling in his haste to get over to the girls.

They met out on the flat, near where the shadow of the cliffs cut a pallid, uneven line across the sand. Ginny threw herself at him, hugging him so tightly that he couldn't catch his breath.

Hermione was a bit more reserved, but still clasped his arm with quivering hands. “Thank God we found you,” she said shakily. Her hair was a tangled, wind-blown mess, and there were tear stains streaking down her smudged cheeks. “We weren't far from each other on the beach, but no one else was there and we didn't know what had happened!”

Ginny was pale as a ghost, her freckles standing starkly against her milky skin. “Are you all right?” she asked with nearly frantic concern. She pulled back from Harry's embrace and took his head in her hands. “You're fine, right?”

“Mostly,” Harry said. “I was sick earlier.”

“We all were. Anyone would be. I don't…” Hermione faltered, staring at the hillock and no doubt still seeing what lay beyond it.

“You're bleeding!” Ginny exclaimed, spotting his injured hand.

“What? Oh, that. I cut myself on the wire. I can't really feel it,” Harry lied. It stung pretty fiercely, but that was all.

“We have to find Ron. I'd hoped he was with you, but he might still be down there,” Hermione choked out. “We have to go back…”

They all stood silently for a moment, not looking at each other. None of them wanted to go back.

Hermione sniffed, and straightened her posture. “I'll go. You two can stay here, I'll find him.”

Harry opened his mouth to tell her no, to tell her that he'd go instead, or that he'd go with her. He would _make_ himself go back down among the dead.

Then, a steely rattle reverberated out in the silence. They all jumped and spun towards the sound, only to see Ron at the top of the hill, kicking some of the wire out of his way. “Hey!” he said hoarsely, sliding down the packed sand. “Am I glad to see you lot!”

Hermione ran forward and grabbed him tightly. “I was so scared!” she said, fresh tears in her eyes.

“Me, too,” Ron told her. His eyes were huge, and haunted. “Fucking hell. I mean…” Words seemed to fail him.

“This is still the dream, right? It has to be,” Ginny said, sounding as if she needed to convince herself that none of it was real.

“If this is Scott's dream, I'll never get at him for not sleeping again,” Hermione promised fervently.

“If it is, then where is he?” Ron wondered.

Harry considered that. If the dream always started in the same place, then Scott would have made his way towards the ridge, just like the rest of them. It would have been madness to stay at the tide. “Did any of you see any footprints on the way up?”

“No. Nothing but… Well, you know,” Ginny said haltingly.

Hermione coughed suddenly. “There was a man without a jaw, right where I woke. His tongue was floating in the water—” she brought her arm across her mouth, stopping herself.

Harry looked up at the concrete bunkers in the looming cliffs ahead, set like dull jewels in the rock. “We're all together, so this is Scott's dream. It has to be. And he'd never stay on the beach.” Harry pointed to the bunkers. “He'd go up, somewhere he could see anything coming, and get a weapon, maybe. If he didn't have one.”

“None of them have any weapons. Did you notice? So many are in uniform, but there are no guns at all,” Hermione said, making a clear effort to keep her hands still and steady her breathing.

Harry hadn't noticed during his grim trek, but he supposed he would have, if there'd been any. All the weapons of war he'd seen had been broken and useless.

Ron was gazing at one of the nearby crumpled forms, his expression unlike any Harry had seen on him before. “Let's just get out of here.”

They walked, crossing the beach as it began to curve up towards the cliffs and give way to rock and brush. There were no clear passageways to the top, but Harry thought he could see a few places where the natural ramparts of stone had crumbled enough to climb. The shallow furrows were worn by water, eating away at the cliff face. If they could find one spot gradual enough, it wouldn't be too much trouble to make their way up.

The corpses continued to become less frequent. Soon they were hiking without interruption, though the occasional dark shape in the corner of Harry's eye still gave him pause. Just before the beach sloped sharply upward, there was an enormous, soil-dusted _thing_ lying on its side. The hulking remains were so crusted with sand that any details were lost, but something about the patches of craggy reptilian hide and bizarre, branching golden armour tugged at Harry's memory.

The place they found to climb was still steep, but not overwhelming in its verticality. There was a flat area before the cliff continued upwards, a sort of step, where Harry hoped they would be able to find an easier way to the top. It was roughly adjacent to one of the bunkers. The dirt slipped under his feet and tumbled down to the bottom; he felt as if he were falling one foot for every two he moved. He tried to grab hold of a spindly bush and the shallow roots pulled right out of the sandy soil, nearly sending him tumbling.

He cast sideways looks towards the dark ports of the bunker, but he couldn't see anything within. There was no light inside at all. And hopefully no one (or nothing) watching them ascend.

At the top, they discovered a concrete trench dug right into the rock. It ran parallel with the upper cliff, looking down towards the mist-shrouded beach. Harry had studiously avoided any looks of his own in that direction. There were no cadavers littering the trench, though there were copious amounts of spent shell casings and old, faded bloodstains. Now that Hermione had mentioned it, he saw she was still right: there were no guns of any kind. Even the jutting emplacements where stationary weapons would have been affixed were empty, the metal mountings rusting unused.

They had been moving without speaking for some time, walking closer together than normal, often hesitant to proceed. The sights and the silence were oppressive even when they weren't actively horrendous. He wasn't sure what the exact nature of the hell they'd stumbled into was, but, about half an hour removed from the edge of the waves, he still couldn't quite accept what he'd seen there.

“This way?” Ron said, after they reached the midway point along the trench.

On the left side was a tunnel, bracketed by concrete pylons. There was no illumination inside (there were enclosures on the ceiling, but they weren't powered). When Harry walked to the edge of the entrance, he could see light at the end, up a series of staircases with short landings in between. The tunnel climbed upward and exited somewhere at the top of the cliff.

The air coming out of the dank, inclined corridor was cool and musty. It smelled like concrete and damp, with a faint hint of something more unpleasant. There were doors along the left side of the tunnel, one at each of the small landings. The light at the top seemed to barely travel downward, creating only a blinding spot against the dim.

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to go into the darkness, given the nature of the dream. But it did appear to be their quickest way up. “Seems like it,” he said, taking the first step in.

His eyes adjusted after the first set of stairs. The door at the initial landing was a solid metal construction, staining the concrete into which it was set with rusty splotches and streaks. He didn't try to open it — he wasn't especially curious as to what lay behind.

He looked away from the door as they passed and nearly ran right into Ginny, who had halted in the middle of the next set of stairs. “What is it?” he asked.

“I thought it was someone,” she said breathlessly, apparently having been startled. “I mean, it is someone, or, it was… I didn't see it at first.”

He looked around her; up ahead was another corpse, slumped against the wall with its head down, chin on its chest. It was sitting next to the third doorway up, a little over halfway to the exit. He'd been hoping they'd left all the bodies behind at the beach, but it seemed as if they weren't so fortunate.

“Go around it,” he said, guiding her towards the right.

They were hurrying past the corpse when something caught Harry's eye. He resisted looking for a moment, but he couldn't quite help himself. The corpse had its legs sticking out in front of it, stiff and splayed. Its shoelaces were untied, and it was the loose string of one that Harry stared at, tracing it back to the shoe.

The corpse was wearing the exact same trainers as he was.

Hermione noticed that he had stopped. She paused at the edge of the landing, one foot on the next step, and looked over her shoulder. “Harry?”

“He's wearing the same shoes as me,” Harry said flatly. Same socks, too, same…

Hermione turned around fully and took a step closer to the body. She bent down, peering at it closely. The exact moment of realisation was clear: she stood up like a shot, eyes huge, with both arms at her sides in horror.

Ginny saw the same thing, too. “Oh, no,” she said, backing away.

“Hang on,” Harry said, his words sounding stiff even to his own ears. “It's not really me. It can't be, I'm right here.”

“Remember, this is all for Scott,” Hermione said, her voice a bit too high and strained to carry off the intellectual detachment she was aiming for. “Perhaps the diadem wants him to think you're dead.”

His corpse was next to a doorway that wasn't barred. There wasn't much light inside, even with his eyes having adjusted, but he could see what looked like another body, lying against the wall with their feet towards the door and their head lost in shadow. It was about Ginny's size, he thought.

“Well,” Ron said with a forced nonchalance almost entirely undermined by his wide eyes and vocal tremor, “at least you're still in one piece.”

It was true. Harry's faux-corpse was grey-skinned and rumpled, but there wasn't any major damage that he could see. “Keep going,” he said numbly. Confronting his own mortality in so literal a fashion was just about more than than he could handle right then.

“Yeah, come on,” Ginny said quickly. She had turned from the body, apparently unable to look at it, and her eyes were wild. She grabbed Harry's sleeve and pulled him away with desperate strength.

Harry went willingly, hurrying towards the light. As he left the tunnel, he halfway turned and his eyes sought out his corpse again, feeling a bewildering compulsion that he couldn't ignore. He didn't know what made him take another look. Disbelief, maybe. Dream or not, it all felt entirely too real.

Just before he crossed out of the shadow of the tunnel roof — the line of light at his chest, and rising — Harry saw the sitting corpse, down in the dark. It was looking back at him, meeting his gaze. Its pale lips were moving, mouthing silent words. Trying to tell him something.

Harry lurched into the muted daylight with his heart pounding. He didn't look into the tunnel again.

They were at the top of the cliff line. The beach below was almost entirely obscured by the fog through which they had passed, an indistinct wall of swirling mist and shadow. Landward, there was a field. The tall grass rippled in the wind, hissing strands creating the first real ambient noise he'd heard since he'd been near the water. There didn't appear to be any more corpses, though he supposed they might be hidden in the grass. The breeze from the ocean still carried with it the sour stench of the beach, so it was hard to tell if anything was rotting close by.

“He's not here,” Hermione noted with disappointment. “What next? I don't see any sort of pathway…”

The field was featureless, unbroken. It ran out, slowly rising into a large hill directly ahead of them. The clouds were even darker in that direction, low and ominous, and the wind was cold, smelling of rain. Harry watched as lightning flickered in the clouds, too far away to hear. The grass waved furiously, flailing in the gusts, rustling ever louder.

“I don't like the look of that,” Ron murmured, staring out towards the dark, roiling horizon.

“We should be able to see from the top of the hill,” Harry said, pointing towards it. “Let's try that first, maybe there's some sort of landmark or road.”

The grass whipped around Harry's waist, tickling his arms and slowing everyone's progress. It had the dead, brownish hue brought by winter, even though Harry would have said it was an unusually cold summer or spring, if a dream could be said to have a season. Then again, it wasn't as if the beach had to correspond to a real location. They were nowhere, nowhen.

He stubbed his toe on something and nearly fell; he looked down, afraid of what it might be. It was merely a rock. “Watch your step,” he said to Ginny, who was walking next to him. When she flinched slightly, he hastened to add, “Just rocks, I think.”

“Not entirely,” Hermione said. She bent down and lifted up an enormous metal casing, the open end tarnished with the soot of ignition.

Ron gaped at it. “What kind of gun would use _that?”_

As Scott wasn't anywhere nearby, Harry felt that it fell to him to be knowledgeable about firearms (even though he wasn't). “Uh, that's probably for artillery,” he guessed.

He proved to be correct. When they crested the top of the hill, they found a round concrete depression set into the top. There were two enormous artillery pieces bolted to the ground within, surrounded by empty wooden boxes and spent shells. There were no corpses, or any sign that humans had been there recently. The concrete of the floor was free of bloodstains and even scorch marks. It almost had the appearance of being new.

“These look like they haven't been fired in ages,” Hermione noted. The guns were rust-eaten, their paint flaking. “But, the shell I found… Well, it's a dream. I suppose there isn't any chronology at work. It's symbolic.”

“But why weren't ours like that?” Ginny wondered. “Everything in my dream made sense until Scott showed up. It was just like I remembered.”

Harry flashed back to the night when they had destroyed the locket. That Horcrux had created a sort of dream, too, just one that lived in the moment rather than entirely in the mind. But when it turned its attentions onto Scott, the Kharadjai had resisted. Instead of a taunting him with a doppelgänger (who would it have been for Scott?), the locket had displayed several fuzzy images, apparently reflections of what little it had been able to glean. One of those images, Harry now recalled, had been a beach under heavy clouds.

“That beach was in the locket!” he exclaimed.

“What? We're in the diadem,” Hermione corrected.

“No, I mean when the locket was trying to mess with Scott. One of the pictures it made was a beach, just like that one.” Harry looked to the concrete walls, where the grass was still soughing loudly in the ominous wind. “I thought there was a cornfield, too, but maybe it was this grass.”

“So they tried the same thing,” Ron surmised. “Looks like the diadem is better at it.”

“Perhaps…” Hermione vacillated. “There's an incomplete quality to all of this, a lack of narrative.”

“That beach has to be based on a memory, I'm sure of it. But… if all the diadem can get from Scott are fragments, even though he isn't aware of what's happening… Then, maybe it just stuck them all together,” Harry theorised.

Ron frowned. “I thought it was trying to trap us? We had good memories, or at least good fake ones. Isn't that so we'd want to stay?”

“I didn't have a good memory, or a memory at all,” Hermione pointed out. “I believe it was trying to be convincing, or discouraging, not necessarily wish-fulfilling.”

“It's desperate,” Harry said with grim satisfaction. “Scott had no bloody clue what was really happening, and he still mucked about and did as he liked. Now it's trying to get him to give up.”

“Once we find him, we can tell him that this isn't real. That should dispel the dream, like it did the others,” Hermione said.

Ginny voiced their collective fear. “What if it doesn't bring us back?”

“Then we work it out, together,” Harry told her with as much confidence as he could project under the circumstances. They were all still reeling from the sights and smells of the beach, so he didn't think he was particularly convincing.

They left the emplacement and resumed moving in the same direction, hoping for a good vantage point. The air currents whipped across the top of the hill with such velocity that several times Harry had to hold his glasses in place. Lightning continued to flash intermittently on the foreboding horizon, and they were beginning to be able to hear it, deep rumbles carried by the wind. Those clouds were noticeably swirling, and Harry very much hoped that they would come no closer.

They soon stood together at the crest, taking in the vista. The clouds overhead were still heavy and dark grey, dimming the sunlight and leaching colour from everything, but the terrain below them was not quite as monochrome as the beach.

Beginning not far from the foot of the hill was a ragged cornfield, the dead stalks barren of vegetables and frayed. It looked as if something huge had been stomping through the fallow tract, crushing some of the stalks to the ground and bending others at broken angles. It might have been wind damage: even as they watched, dry, brittle husks twirled in miniature vortexes and piled in the furrows. Beyond that was another field much like the one they had already crossed, though this one was dotted with more scrubby brush. At the end of it, almost to the point where it couldn't be clearly seen, was a single enormous tree, stretching towards the steel sky.

There was a sort of path — not a proper road, but a crooked foot trail of dirt that cut through the middle of the cornfield and what lay past it, seemingly winding towards the tree.

“I suppose that must be our landmark,” Hermione said, breaking the silence. She had to nearly shout to be heard over the wind that swept up the hillside. “It's the most obvious route we've seen.”

Would Scott have taken the most obvious route? Harry wasn't sure. Short of wandering off into unmarked territory, however, there weren't many other options. “And there's the cornfield. There was one more thing, I think. Can't remember what it was…”

“I don't think I saw that as clearly as you did,” Hermione said.

Ginny, however, nodded. “There was. It was a forest, with snow.”

It wasn't cold enough for snow, and there weren't any forests in sight. “Well, maybe it skipped that one,” Harry said.

“It could have been a good memory. Wouldn't have much use for that,” Ron said.

That seemed true. Whatever amalgamation of memory and fantasy they were trapped in, it didn't look as if any of the source material had been pleasant. Harry opened his mouth to speak, and then thunder growled above the plain, loud and deep enough that he felt it in his chest. He shut his mouth and frowned with concern towards the swirling cloud bank.

It was a concern Hermione shared. “The last thing we need is to get caught out here in a storm.”

“You think we could get hurt? We're not even here, not really,” Ron said.

“I don't know what the result would be if something were to happen to us. At best, I think nothing would, we're all aware of what's actually going on. At worst…” Hermione paused. “I doubt we'd just wake up.”

“Just be careful and treat it like it's real. It's a Horcrux, so whatever happens won't be fun,” Ginny said succinctly.

They went carefully over the uneven ground of the cornfield, crashing through the dry stalks, a clamorous passage that left Harry trying not to sneeze as the fine fibres blew all around him. After, they followed the path. The trail was dusty and often uneven, winding through the field towards the looming tree. Up close, Harry could see that the dirt beneath his feet was packed with shell casings. All sizes and types, the cases were jumbled together in a long metallic procession. Some were of the fat, plastic kind that he recognised as compatible with his own shotgun; others looked more or less like the rifle ammunition Scott had loaded into his M4. There were a few stranger varieties that didn't look like they would work in any gun Harry had ever seen.

As the branches of the tree slowly gained definition, it became apparent that the barren limbs were not the only thing about the tree that was dead.

Hermione squinted at it, and then gasped. “Oh, no. Please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I am.”

Harry's glasses were not in the cleanest condition, but at that point they were close enough that he could confirm Hermione's fears. “I see them, too.”

“Really? Enough is enough…” Ron muttered, almost to himself.

The branches of the tree were heavy with corpses, swaying in the oncoming gale. They hung from their necks by ropes, pendulous silhouettes that swung with every gust, feet dangling, heads lolled. Harry watched as the wind picked up once again, moving the suspended corpses in a rippling wave. At a distance, it looked like some macabre wind chime.

Ginny's hand wound tightly around Harry's right arm. “I don't want to go over there,” she said quietly, only for his ears.

“Neither do I,” Harry said, though they didn't halt their advance.

At last they stood beneath the single tree, draped in the spindly shadows of its limbs as the hanged cast their own blurry outlines on the ground, gliding across the dull earth between each sketched branch. The storm continued to build in the distance behind the tree, but directly above it the sun seemed to pierce through a thinner layer of clouds, sharpening the scene with a dusty, distributed amber patina. The effect was like standing in the shade of something more organic, a mockery of life, a constant shifting of light and shadow that created ominous, half-formed shapes out of those which were already horrid.

The many people who hung from the upper reaches were unfamiliar to Harry, or at least too distant to clearly distinguish. However, the limbs closest to the ground were the anchor for several limp corpses that spun listlessly in the air currents, near enough to examine. Of the four closest, one was a tall woman with dark hair and another was an older man, neither of whom Harry recognised. The other two were Lila, her blonde ponytail fluttering like the corn husks, and Sophie, her porcelain features purpled above the noose.

Scott sat at the very foot of the tree. His head was down and he had one arm over a raised knee, the other in the dirt. The flickering shadows played over his slouched shoulders. The bottoms of his trousers were coated with blood and sand, just like the rest of theirs. He gave no sign that he was aware of their arrival.

Harry took a few steps forward, dropping his feet more heavily than he normally would. If Scott was as oblivious as he seemed to be, it was probably not the best idea to sneak up on him. Harry made sure to knock a protruding shell out of the soil, sending it clinking across several others.

His presence thus announced, he licked his lips and said, “Scott?”

Scott raised his head. He didn't look grief-stricken, or terrified, or even angry. He just looked tired. Weariness and resignation were etched in every line of his face.

Harry felt he should first reassure his friend. “Scott, it's all right. None of this is real.”

“I know,” Scott said.

Harry blinked. “You…” He glanced back at Hermione, who met his look with equal bafflement. “You already knew?”

“It's fairly obvious. Some things look real enough, but the smell is off. And there are no birds at all. There weren't even any flies down at the beach,” Scott said. His tone was normal, almost conversational, and if that were the only thing Harry had to go on then he would have said that Scott had, somehow, been unaffected by the carnage. It was the Kharadjai's defeated posture which told a different story. He picked a cartridge out of the scrubby, matted grass next to his extended leg and flicked it towards Harry. “Look at this.”

Harry bent down and picked up the tarnished tube of brass. He wasn't sure what he was expected to see. “What about it?”

“It's supposed to be a .45 ACP, but the end of the cartridge isn't flanged. There's nothing for the extractor to grip. It's ammunition designed by someone who sort of knows what ammunition looks like, but not how it actually works.”

Harry remembered what Hermione had said, about the dream's lack of 'narrative'. The same patchwork construction obviously extended further. Perhaps the absence of weapons had not been intentional, but rather the by-product of an uncertain architect. Still… all the corpses had been entirely convincing. And Scott may have taken issue with the verisimilitude of the odours, but they had been sickening enough for Harry.

“The _smell_ is off?” Harry repeated, unable to just let that go. He'd regurgitated his imaginary previous meal down in the tide, in large part due to that smell.

“It's close,” Scott allowed. “But a big pile of bodies like that… Well, I don't really have a comparison. There are a lot of things wrong with this.”

“Yeah, I'd say so!” Ron burst out. “There are a bloody million dead people down there! Who _are_ they?”

Scott shrugged lethargically. “They're supposed to be people I've killed.” He looked up briefly, and, noting their collective expressions of horror, added, “It's exaggerated for effect.”

“And who are they?” Harry asked, indicating the tree and its ghoulish occupants.

“No one you know. With a couple exceptions,” Scott said evasively. He didn't look at the bodies. “Kylie is over there.”

Harry followed Scott's quick indication and saw a form near the edge of the clearing that he hadn't noticed before. It was a small body, draped in a flannel shirt that served as a makeshift funeral shroud. “She was in the cornfield. Crucified. Like a scarecrow, I think the idea was,” Scott continued, his lack of inflection somehow making his words even more awful.

“Harry was in the tunnel,” Ginny said quietly.

Scott did not react. “I saw.”

Harry shifted his weight uncertainly. “Do you remember the dreams before this one?”

“I think so. I remember the one we had well enough.”

“Was that the first dream?”

“Unless you can tell me differently. I don't recall being anywhere before that.”

“This should have already ended,” Hermione fretted. She had her gaze resolutely fixed on the ground. “If Scott's been aware, that should have ended it. I don't know why we're still here.”

Slowly, Scott rose to his feet. “Maintaining one dream is a bit different than five — or at least four, mine were short. I'd guess the others were abandoned as all attention turned to me.”

“So how do we get out?” Ginny asked, her voice uneven. Harry could relate: knowing that the dream wasn't ending, but not why, was stirring the beginnings of panic.

“The other dreams disintegrated. I'd thought it was because awareness broke them down, but, no, it was because the diadem abandoned each one as Scott moved on. This one's being supported, so perhaps if we…” Hermione trailed off, her brow furrowed. “If we tried to destabilise it ourselves…”

“How?” Ginny pressed.

“I don't know! I don't…” Hermione stopped suddenly. “Scott.”

Scott was looking at one of the hanged corpses with an indecipherable expression on his face. “What?”

“We know that these dreams operate under a sort of logic. Much more logic than standard dreams, anyway. If our thoughts changed our dreams, and that does seem to be the case, then it follows that we have some small level of impact here. And you, uncontrollable as you seem to be, have even more,” Hermione said excitedly, the first real hint of spark returning to her eyes.

Scott leaned against the tree. “Because if my apertures worked, it's because I know how they work and if the diadem doesn't, and it shouldn't—”

“Then we know that was you!” Hermione finished.

“Right, okay. So we take an aperture back to the Transversal, and then find the door back to your universe, the real one, waking ourselves up. Is that what you're thinking?”

Hermione nodded. “Yes. I know you said apertures won't work for us, but these aren't real apertures. There's no reason we can't go through, other than your own sense of reality, of course. I'm supposing you can bend your preconception long enough to allow us passage.”

“Let's say it works. What's going to stop the diadem from just putting us right back in dreams again the second we wake up?”

“Ability?” Hermione hazarded. “It's obviously limited, and it seems to have reached those limits attempting to trap all five of us.”

“But it's got to be listening to us right now! It can just stop anything we do if it knows we're doing it,” Ron pointed out.

“That can't be right,” Ginny said sceptically. “If it can do whatever it wants, then why didn't it just kill us?”

“Yeah, if it could kill us, we'd already be dead,” Scott agreed. “Struck by lightning, heart attack, spawn an anvil over us like some Looney Tunes shit, it could take us out whenever.”

Harry remembered the trap in the cave. Riddle didn't wish to kill his enemies, not immediately. Not before he could establish how they discovered his secret. “Riddle designed his traps to keep people alive, at least for awhile.”

“Okay, sure. He wants to know how we know, assuming he ever becomes aware of this. It's not like he checks on his stuff often enough for it to matter,” Scott said. “So it's a limited thing. We don't understand what the rules are, but there clearly are rules.”

“It's still our dream,” Hermione said. “Maybe we didn't start it, but it's ours. To an extent.”

“Then we need to push the extent.”

“What if we could confront the diadem directly? Perhaps we could face an avatar of Riddle, as you did with the locket,” Hermione suggested.

“That assumes this dream has a pretty literal nature, if what happens to the diadem here happens to the diadem in totality,” Scott said. “More to the point, why would the diadem include itself in this dream?”

“I suppose it probably doesn't have to, does it,” Hermione mused. “There wouldn't be much sense in making itself vulnerable.”

“I also didn't do much confronting with the locket. Harry's the one who ended the conversation in a very physical fashion.”

Hermione nodded. “The physical is not currently an option, we need another one. A dream ends when you awaken; so, we must either end the dream or somehow awaken ourselves.”

Harry would have joined the discussion if he'd had any ideas. But he had assumed that the dream would collapse once Scott was made aware of the situation. With that not being the case, the next step was a mystery to him. He watched the clouds churn overhead, the darkest portions never seeming to come any closer. The beach and everything past it were in stasis, or so it appeared. The light hadn't changed in the time since they'd moved inland, though it was so overcast that he couldn't tell if time were actually passing. He supposed that, eventually, it might become night. Or perhaps it never would. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be stuck in the dream long enough to find out.

What was the _point_ of it all? The entire pastiche of horror was clearly an attempt to mess with Scott, but to what end? If the diadem had just wanted Scott to stop moving from dream to dream, then why had it not simply placed all of them together in the same environment and made them forget they'd been anywhere else? Scott would have stayed there, all of his Primes already present.

That was an interesting thought. “Hey,” he spoke up, interrupting, “if the diadem needed to keep Scott from moving, why do you think it didn't just drop us all into the same dream?”

Ron shrugged. “Because it was the other people that broke the dreams in the first place, like you did for me, or Scott did for you.”

“I walked right into Scott. Then he started talking about things I didn't remember, I was so confused… But, I think that helped,” Ginny said.

“That's exactly it,” Hermione agreed. “No one else in your dream would doubt the reality of the situation if they themselves weren't real. Remember, it's not _just_ that it needs to stop Scott from moving about. It can't read him like it does us, with whatever form of Legilimency it uses. Wherever he is, he causes us to misremember, we don't understand his presence. Putting him with Harry was an immediate blunder, but even if he'd been by himself, he would have come looking for us eventually.”

“Maybe that's why it put me with Harry. It can't create convincing versions of you guys for me if it can't figure out what events we've shared. I'd have been with a Hermione that couldn't recall anything we did or talked about,” Scott said. “I'd have been out of there soon enough.”

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” Ginny said suddenly.

Harry glanced upwards at the swaying deceased. He and his friends had all been doing a good job of pretending that they weren't having a discussion beneath the corpse-heavy branches of a hangman's tree. It would be even better if they didn't have to pretend.

For once, Scott seemed to be entirely amenable to Ginny's suggestion. “Let me see what I can do.”

Another swell of thunder rumbled across the plain, as if to add urgency. Harry watched the clouds darken further, and wondered if it would rain. He hoped to be gone before he found out.


	26. In Transition

**26**

**In Transition**  

\---

 _“By taking part in the Universal Objective and_  
 _befriending those who are closest to it, the_  
 _integrationist is implicitly accepting the trials_  
 _that go hand in hand. That much is expected._  
 _Less so is the understanding which can evade_  
 _the inexperienced integrationist until it is too_  
 _late: It is easy to forget that trials take many_  
 _forms, and often those that are most damaging_  
 _are not corporeal. All integrationists must accept_  
 _that they are to put their physical well being at_  
 _risk in lieu of their Primes. But they must also_  
 _be willing to risk themselves emotionally.”_  


_—_ You Must Be More: The Combat Corps. Primare's  
                        Path to Probationary Integration

\---

It hadn't taken Scott too long to establish an aperture. Perhaps their current estrangement from reality made such things easier.

They were looking at an impossible window in the trunk of the vast tree, behind which was some sort of blank grey interior. Harry knew it wasn't a _real_ aperture. Regardless, he couldn't help but be a little enthused at the prospect of entering one. He'd wondered what it would be like ever since Scott had appeared at the cliff edge by the sea, above Riddle's cave.

“Transversal Station,” Scott said, gazing at his work. “Where you need, when you need it. Or, as we say in the army, 'where you need, when they get around to it'.”

“Is there anything we need to know before we go through this?” Hermione asked.

Scott shook his head. “You're not a Kharadjai, so, no. Whether or not this works depends on how accurate an emulation this is.”

Hermione blew out a breath. “I suppose we're about to find out. Shall I go first?”

“Go ahead.”

She approached the aperture with obvious trepidation. When she stood mere inches from it, she slowly lifted her hand and made as if to push it through. She paused just before her palm met the opening. “This doesn't hurt, does it?” she said nervously.

Scott rolled his eyes. “It's a hole. There's nothing _to_ hurt you.”

“But there are no protective edges at all, it's impossibly thin, won't it cut right through me if I touch the sides?”

“No. The edge is in the tree, you'll just bump into the tree.”

“The tree is uneven, not perfectly vertical, there are plenty of spots where the aperture doesn't meet it—”

“Just go through!” Scott barked irritably.

She glared back at him. “I don't want to lose a hand, I was making certain! You don't need to shout at me for being cautious!”

Anywhere else, at most other times, Harry would likely have found their argument amusing. But there was a sharper edge to it than usual, an undercurrent of deeper distemper. “I'll just go,” he said quickly. Without stopping for any confirmation, he tucked his arms in, lowered his head, and stepped through the aperture.

There was no sensation at all in moving through. No tingling of energy, no strange sounds. He felt the ambient temperature change, and that was it. It was no different than stepping through any other door. He was slightly disappointed by how anticlimactic the experience was.

On the other hand, it was about a thousand times more pleasant than Apparating.

He found himself in a hallway that was remarkable only for its length. It seemed to stretch on in both directions until his vision failed him. The air was cool and tasted filtered, vaguely antiseptic. There was a subdued rumble humming distantly through the walls and floor, and the metal doors lining the sides were unmarked. It made him wonder how anyone was able to know where they were going. Each door looked exactly the same as the rest.

“These should be on.”

Harry jumped a little when Scott suddenly spoke next to him — he'd been leaning down to look at a small rectangular plate next to the nearest door. The raised plate was segmented into even smaller rectangles, each of which seemed to be slightly textured. Behind him, he saw that the aperture was gone and everyone had come through. “What should?”

“The emitters.” Scott tapped a finger against the rectangle. “There are also ones at the ceiling with directions and door numbers. Don't know why it's all dark.”

Harry had no idea, and he was about to say so when an incredibly loud buzzing sound ripped through the air and nearly startled him out of his skin — it took him a second to realise it was a siren. There was a humming noise that seemed to cut right through his sinuses, rattling his teeth, and two shimmering walls of unknown energy appeared at both sides of the hall, isolating the group. They were trapped.

“What is this?” Ginny exclaimed, her voice high with alarm.

“Hold on, hooold on—” Scott muttered. He approached the nearest sparking field and slammed his fist twice against the wall next to the buzzing edge. “Hey!”

The projection of a person appeared from nowhere, floating in front of the dancing blockade. It was a pale man with carefully parted hair and a round, friendly face, who seemed to be behind some sort of desk or console. “Sorry, Primare, but the system's telling me you've got four unsanctioned para-baselines and you're still contaminated. You gotta come through the grid, Scott, you know that!”

“I've _been_ through the grid, Gus!” Scott said impatiently. “Everyone here is cleared with NSV status and we're clean as a whistle, this is the fuckin' server again. Restart the database and recheck, Zhubin said you'd have to do it manually with the NSVs when they come through Central instead of P-Sector.”

A short pause. “…Okay, I'm seeing it,” Gus said with a note of apology. “I'll get those off for you. You need a lift?”

“No, we're all right. Have a good one.”

The energy walls disappeared and the infernal humming ceased. The hall seemed unnaturally silent when the noise faded.

Scott broke the quiet with a triumphant chuckle. “I can't believe that worked. You were right,” he said to Hermione.

She blinked. “About?”

“Our level of control. That was complete horseshit I just fed to faux-Gus. The system is centralised and updates automatically for all sectors. And you can't bring NSVs through Central, nobody does that.” Scott frowned, and glanced at the ceiling. “The safety gates didn't come down, either. Good thing you didn't touch the field.”

The 'field' had been a bright, seething array of energy and had sounded like a live wire, the loud, deadly droning being the opposite of inviting. Touching the damn thing had not been one of Harry's impulses.

“Do tell us if there's anything else we shouldn't touch,” Hermione said.

“Well, don't cause any serious structural damage and you won't trigger the active countermeasures. I think you can handle that.” Scott bent down near one of the blank emitters. After a few seconds, he backed away with an expression of disgust. “None of this is working. I know I've been moving through here, but there's no indication this time. You think this is the same dream, or a new one?”

“I can't think of any way to be absolutely certain,” Hermione admitted. “That said, perhaps it would be a different dream if we went somewhere we are all familiar with? I should think this would still be yours.”

“We're all familiar with Grimmauld and we want that to be the real one.” Scott sighed. “I don't even know how I bypassed the box. We should have come out in the room behind the door, not the door itself.”

“Why do you need one of these doors to be the correct one? You're aware this is a dream, just make your own,” Hermione pointed out.

“My nebulous control. I'm worried that if I make my own aperture I'm just creating an expansion to this dream, which this seems to be.”

“There shouldn't be any dreams left to move to…”

“Yeah, but if this last aperture took us to a dream version of the Transferral, why wouldn't the next one take us to a dream version of Grimmauld?”

Hermione's mouth thinned. “If your control is the key, all of this doubt can't be helping.”

“Oh, so I just have to _believe.”_

“If you have a better idea, I am waiting to hear it!”

Harry was aware that everyone was very much on edge, but he wasn't going to allow Hermione and Scott to start squabbling. “Hey!” He stepped between them. “This is the _last_ time for a row, full stop. You two are the ones most likely to work this out and we all know it, so stop having a go at each other and start thinking.”

Ginny stepped next to Harry and crossed her arms in a show of solidarity. Ron contributed by tugging Hermione back further away from Scott, letting her lean into him.

“I'm not going to work this out. I don't know what's happening or how to stop it,” Hermione said quietly, defeated.

“Same boat,” Scott grunted, avoiding her eyes. He turned away, took a few steps down the hall, stopped, and whirled back around on his heel. “Are we not cool?”

“What?”

“The fight we had, before the wedding.”

Hermione was clearly startled. “Well, we… we did talk about it. Briefly. And you apologised, I believe.”

“No, I didn't. Not directly. I weaselled out of it like a little shit.” Scott went silent for a moment, face blank, perhaps deciding what words to use (or how much to reveal). “The Minister called me 'boy'. My old man used to call me that, and it pisses me off. Between that and decorating for a wedding my fuckwad teen-self didn't give a crap about, I was agitated, and I took it out on you. You didn't deserve it, and I'm sorry.”

“I appreciate your explanation, and I accept your apology,” Hermione said formally. Then her mouth turned downwards, and she said, “And I apologise for slapping you. Regardless of what you said, I did not have the right to strike you.”

“I accept your apology. And I also have an idea.”

Hermione looked relieved, though that may have had as much to do with the sudden end of such an awkward moment as it did Scott's revelation. “Do you?”

“Last time I went through here, there was a door marked to take me to Ron. None of these,” he waved his hand at the blank doorways, “are active, but if there's another dream, there might be another doorway. We need to check the directory.”

“All right, then let's go,” Harry said, wanting to get moving. As far as he was concerned, doing something was better than standing around and debating whether there was anything that could be done.

They followed Scott as he turned and began walking. The doors all looked the same, but he seemed to know where he was going. As they went, Ginny moved to walk closer to Harry.

“I've never been anywhere like this,” she remarked.

“None of us have, except for Scott,” Harry replied.

“Really? I thought this was a Muggle sort of place,” she said.

That made Harry smile, his first one in what felt like forever. “A Muggle sort? What sort is that?”

“You know…” She indicated the entirety of the hall with a vague hand motion. “All metal-ly, with no lamps. And weird-smelling air.”

The 'Transferral' (Transversal? Scott had said both) was definitely quite the contrast to the usual wizarding surrounds. But Harry had also never seen anything quite like it in the Muggle world… Not that he had seen all that much of the Muggle world, either. “Not exactly. I think this is all Kharadjai.”

Scott led them to an open doorway on the left side of the corridor; it had been recessed into the wall, unnoticed until they came upon it. At the top of a short ramp was an odd, unpainted metal entrance that didn't look like a part of the hallway itself, but rather some sort of dock, attached with a clamping system. It granted access to what Harry guessed was the interior of a conveyance, a nondescript box with about ten seats, arranged around the sides of the rectangular space. It was like being on a much smaller Tube. All of the seats had a harness system, but Scott sat down without using his, so Harry followed suit.

He regretted it a moment later when Scott said, “Primarius Sector Central,” and the lift slid into motion with such rapid acceleration that Harry nearly smacked his head on the back of his seat.

“Straighten up, bobblehead,” Scott said, having probably forgone a warning for his own amusement.

After another jolt in a different direction, Hermione asked, “Are we moving horizontally?”

“See for yourself.” Scott tapped something on the wall and sections of the car which had been opaque became windows (Harry watched it happen, but couldn't tell how it worked). There wasn't much to see outside. They were moving so quickly that the surroundings were nothing but a blur of alternating light and dark.

“How bloody fast are we going?” Ron marvelled.

Scott shrugged. “We won't reach top speed in the interior. Not for this trip. There's not really anything to see unless you're on the exterior.”

“This doesn't strike me as being especially aerodynamic,” Hermione observed, looking around the rectangular room.

“There's no atmosphere outside the car. Or gravity.” Scott glanced out at the passing blur. “Nothing but a whole lot of infrastructure.”

Hermione went stiff with pure excitement. “Are we in space?!” she gasped.

“No. You're in a dream.”

“…That is true,” she murmured, subsiding.

“Closest I'll ever be,” Harry assumed. “Too bad we can't see anything.”

Scott nodded. “Short trip, though.”

The sound of the lift began to change, indicating deceleration. Soon there came a quiet clanking as the clamps re-engaged, and the door slid open by itself. They filed out into a short hall that looked more or less like the one they had just left.

“The lifts here don't talk to you,” Scott said as he walked. He had a familiar spring to his step that had been missing even just minutes before. He gestured like a tour guide, perhaps pleased to be, for once, in his territory, and not theirs (even if they weren't, really). “Usually they're all chatty with arrivals and departures and targeted advertising. That's in the public sectors. Here, they keep everything quiet and expect you to know where you're going.”

The brief hall emptied out in a larger room with a higher ceiling. There was a row of several lift entrances lining the longest side of the room, and a large, curved metal desk at the centre of it. When Scott had spoken of 'Central' as if it were some manner of front office, Harry had expected something more welcoming than the blank halls. Instead, the Primarius hub was as severe and utilitarian as the rest of the Transferral they had seen, with uncomfortable-looking chairs that were bolted to the floor, and unadorned metal fixtures and stairways. There were coloured lines on the walls and floor, apparently as guidelines to different areas. One wider doorway had large block letters over it in red, reading, 'QUARTERMASTER'. It looked more or less like what Harry would have imagined a military base might look like.

“I thought Central would be bigger,” Harry said.

“This isn't Central. This is _Primarius_ Sector Central,” Scott corrected. “Central is the main floor for civilian traffic.”

Ron looked around the empty room. “Yeah, this is a little less than lively.”

“It's so weird being in here when it's quiet like this,” Scott mused. He approached a wall upon which many of the rectangular emitters were fixed, waving his hand in front of each of them in turn. He received no response.

“There's a light behind the desk,” Ginny said, pointing towards it.

Scott hurried over to it. “This is the front terminal. I'm not supposed to use this.” He paused. “…Who's gonna stop me?”

Several screens came to life in front of him, glowing in the air. There seemed to be at least some level of solidity to them, despite their projected nature, because Scott's fingers didn't pass through as he pressed on them. Harry knew he could ask for an explanation, but he was equally aware that he wouldn't understand any of it. He accepted the screens and the rest of Transversal Station the same way he had accepted all the other magic he'd witnessed (though he knew that Scott would probably throw a fit if Harry called the screens 'magic').

“Oh, God, it's good to be using something with an interface again,” Scott said, apparently to no one in particular. “So tired of fucking _quills_. Hmm-hmm-hmmmm okay — P-sector directory, active only, one match… What?”

“What is it?” Hermione had been attempting to read over his shoulder but, given how fast Scott was moving through screens, Harry doubted she'd been successful.

“Only one active aperture. Period.” Scott pointed to the projection. “No designation, no OP tag, no timer, no usage entries. It's called, 'Next'. Just 'Next', that's it. Is this still me? Because, if so, my brain is stupid.”

“Can we get there?”

“Yeah, we can get there, I just don't like the implication— _down!”_

Harry was startled, unprepared; he'd been looking intently at the screens, doing his best to decipher the lettering (it was English, but it looked like most things were marked with abbreviations and acronyms), when Scott had barked out his sudden order. One of the lift doors across from the desk was opening with a steely rumble, revealing several raised gun barrels. Harry didn't get the chance to react. Ginny threw her arms around his shoulders and dragged him to the ground behind the desk before he fully understood what was happening.

“Stay down,” Scott told them quietly. He'd drawn a handgun, suddenly armed. Harry couldn't remember if the Kharadjai had been carrying a gun in the previous dream.

Harry felt Ginny's heart beating with fright against his back as they listened to the booted footsteps of the unknown enemies spreading out, taking positions along the widest edge of the room.

“Intruders behind the desk!” a man shouted out once the sounds of movement had ceased. “Identify yourselves!”

Scott's face creased into an outraged glare. “PRIMARIUS CAPTAIN SCOTT KHARAN, 1-776-998!” he roared back. “AND YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A **GODDAMN** GOOD REASON FOR POINTING A WEAPON AT ME, T-SEC!”

A nervous pause. “…Come out unarmed, sir, so we can verify!”

Scott shoved his pistol towards Hermione, who blanched, but took it from him with hesitant hands. He hopped up onto his feet, turning his glare onto the soldiers. “Name?” he snapped.

“Sergeant David Green,” the man replied in a calmer tone, revealing an accent that Harry couldn't even begin to place.

“Who's your commanding officer?”

“Lieutenant Fernett, sir, but we were told—”

“I don't care what you were told,” Scott said bluntly, overriding the Sergeant. “I'm moving my NSVs and stopped by the directory when you come stomping in here like it's fucking raid-day, scaring the shit out of my Primes. Why are you scaring the shit out my Primes, Sergeant?”

“We had a report that there were some unauthorised—”

“Do I look unauthorised to you? Is a Primarius Captain unauthorised to be in P-sector?”

“No, sir, this must have been a misunderstanding.”

“That's right. So you need— get your fucking finger off that trigger, Security Officer!” Scott snapped at a different man, making the hapless guard jump back. “You need to go back to the Lieutenant and explain this fuck up. You agree?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. He was attempting to maintain a rigid expression, but the relief that came with his dismissal was obvious enough.

“Report to Lieutenant Fernett,” Scott said with a note of finality, and the guards filed back into the lift.

Slowly, Harry and the rest stood, not entirely sure what had just happened. “Are we all right?” Ron said. “Or should I keep hiding, because I don't really mind it, at this point.”

Harry nudged Ginny with his shoulder and gave her a small grin. “Nice tackle, Gin.”

“Did you like that?” she said with an answering smile.

Hermione held the gun out away from herself in one hand, barrel dangling towards the floor. “Please take this back,” she said urgently.

Scott reached over and obliged, tucking the weapon back into its holster. “Back to the lift, guys. It's not too far from there.”

“It's fortunate that they recognised you,” Hermione commented as they followed their previous path back.

“They didn't. T-Sec can confirm my identity with my serial number, facial recognition and biometrics. Or, that's what the real T-Sec would do. Maybe this time they took my word for it.” Scott appeared to be amused by the idea.

“Or maybe they _did_ recognise you, being creations of your memory,” Hermione countered.

“I've never seen those people before. Now, Fernett, I have met her at least once. So who knows. T-Sec isn't even supposed to come over here. The Primarius handles its own sector, we don't need cops. If there had been actual staff around, there would have been some friction.”

“You do strike me as being territorial,” Hermione remarked.

“Me?” Scott said innocently. “I'm the soul of cooperation compared to Major Heidi. She treats T-Sec like dog shit.”

After a second short ride on the multi-directional lift, they were deposited in yet another identical hallway. Harry supposed it was an efficient design, but he felt like he was going in circles. The architectural repetition would have been disorienting and dreamlike even if it weren't actually a dream. Perhaps the emitters, had they been functioning, would have added much needed context and colour to the halls.

“This is it, by my count,” Scott said, stopping in front of a door exactly like all the others. He waved his hand at the emitter and it sprang to life, casting a single glowing word: NEXT.

“Not 'home', or, 'exit'… Just, 'next',” Hermione said with a small sigh.

“It's not what we wanted. But any progress has to be better than none,” Harry said, making a deliberate attempt to be encouraging instead of expressing his own thoughts on the matter. He knew that was something he needed to work on.

“We're all right bloody here,” Ron said with frustration. “Who could still be dreaming?”

Scott tilted his head in consideration. “Well, worst case is the dreams are layered, and everywhere we've been so far has actually just been my dream in which I've created my conception of what you guys would have been dreaming.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Ginny said, wrinkling her nose with confusion.

“Maybe you just don't understand.”

“That's not what I meant!” she said, frowning at him. “It doesn't make sense based on the _dreams._ You weren't even there when I saw Harry at breakfast, how would you know anything about it?”

“She's right, that had to be hers if it matches to her memory,” Hermione argued.

Scott nodded, conceding the point. “Okay, so maybe the diadem has its own dream.”

“That doesn't make sense either, why would it trap itself?” Ginny said.

“Okay, so maybe someone else got caught with us when the spell hit.”

“Sophie and Kylie were all the way upstairs… But, we don't know how far this spell could reach…” Hermione said worriedly.

“No… I don't think so,” Harry said, mulling it over. “The locket didn't do anything to them.”

Scott nodded again. “Okay, so maybe—”

“Look, we're just going to have to go through,” Harry said, interrupting Scott's apparently endless litany of possibilities.

Scott already had his gun out. He tapped the emitter screen and the door slid open, revealing a featureless aperture. “You know, you're supposed to be able to see through these. I've never seen an aperture that actually looked like something.”

Harry hoped there was something on the other side, and he wasn't about to step into non-existence. “Here I go—” he began, only for his words to end with a strangled exhalation when Scott pulled him forcefully back by his shirt collar.

“Allow me, Mr Priority One,” Scott said. He stuck his head through the aperture. After a moment, he withdrew with a slight frown on his face.

“Well?” Hermione prompted. “Is it safe?”

“The aperture, yes. The location… See for yourself.”

Harry didn't like the sound of that. “Can't you just _tell_ us?”

“You're just, you're killing the drama, man. You're killing it,” Scott sighed.

“I guess I'm just boring, sometimes.”

Scott gave him one more disapproving look, but said, “It's Godric's Hollow. Or at least part of it.”

“The Hollow?” Harry repeated, confused. He looked at the others, but they all seemed to be as perplexed as he. “Why would that be…?”

“It can't be Sophie or Kylie, then, they've never been there,” Ginny said.

“Ahh, door of mystery. Why are you so mysterious?” Scott said, shaking his head at the aperture.

Hermione face twisted with apprehension. “It's not a possibility I'm pleased to consider, but… What if one of us isn't real?”

They all stared at her — save for Scott, who shrugged nonchalantly. “What if two or three of us aren't real? What if _none_ of you are real?” he said, somehow unperturbed by that concept. “I could be talking to myself right now.”

“Then let's prove it. Ask me something,” Ron said.

Scott rolled his eyes. “It would prove nothing. You could all share some private memories that only you would know, and I would have no way of knowing whether or not they actually happened. Any memories we already share are in my head or your head and therefore meaningless if our heads are being accessed.”

Ron grimaced. “Well… You're Horcrux-proof, sort of, so if anyone's real then it's probably you. Don't tell me if I'm not. I'd rather not know. Ignorance is bliss, and all that rot.”

“The shape isn't quite what it's supposed to be, but it's telling me you're real, even if it's not telling me much else. And maybe that's just because our lines are the only thing being properly rendered from memory, easy and familiar, but you know what? It doesn't matter. We might as well pretend we're sure, because this is happening.” Scott raised his handgun. “Few second delay, move fast and spread out. You know how this goes.”

They did, unfortunately. Harry sort of wished he hadn't become familiar with the frisson of terror, adrenaline and exhilaration that rushed through him as he tensed, waiting to spring through the aperture. It was so similar to the feeling that came just before the start of a Quidditch match, except the game had never engendered the same dread. It was a sensation that somehow made all the others so much more intense, an added layer of madness and consequence, a thrilling fear. He thought he understood how Scott could do such things for a living.

Scott shot through the aperture; seconds later, Harry followed. He found himself outside, standing in a street in Godric's Hollow beneath a starry night sky. The wind was cold and burned his throat, which had become accustomed to the mild, recycled climate of the Transferral. It was dark in the Hollow, dark enough that moon seemed glaring. The village looked lifeless. None of the street lamps were on, and all the houses were unlit.

Save for one. They had emerged right in front of the Potter cottage, its windows glowing with soft candle light. Harry stared at it. The cottage was intact, the upper storey unbroken, the front garden neatly trimmed. It was a sight he had witnessed only in photographs. He shivered in the biting air, trying to make sense of it.

“Thoughts?” Scott said quietly, gun at the ready as he scanned the shadowed surrounds.

“One or two, but I reckon you want something useful,” Ron replied, blinking as his eyes adjusted.

“Get off the street,” Scott ordered, vaulting over the garden wall. The rest of them just used the gate, which wasn't locked.

More secure in a position of cover, Harry leaned against the low stone wall and tried to arrange his thoughts. If anyone's dream involved the Hollow, it would logically have been his own. But, he'd already been through his dream. Was the diadem creating new scenarios for them to move into, divested from any one person's memories? It was awful to think that the dreamscape might stretch out before them into eternity, renewing itself whenever needed, granting only false progression. They could wander forever if every new step was built in front of them.

Hermione was examining the cottage. “We're clearly meant to go in,” she said, indicating the rest of the dark and silent village.

“It's a trap,” Harry assumed.

“All of the dreams were traps. But if the last one was for Scott, perhaps we've circled all the way around and this one is for you, again,” Hermione said.

Harry frowned. “Odd choice. I've only been here once, and the memory isn't even all that bad, everyone got out all right… Or sort of all right.” He jerked his head in Scott's direction.

“Might be a dream for all of us,” Ron suggested.

“It didn't look like this when we were there,” Harry said. “That's not my memory.”

“Mine, neither,” Ron agreed. “House is in one piece and it's bloody cold out. I guess that's halfway an improvement.”

“Don't get too attached to the idea of memory. Scott's dream was a bit of a jumble,” Hermione pointed out.

Ron shrugged. “But that's him, yeah? None of the rest of us are absolute nutters like that, 'cept maybe Harry, but not in a way that helps.”

Harry rubbed his hands against his trousers, trying to get some warmth through friction. “Come on, you lot — one way or another, we're going inside. We'll ice over out here.”

In the moonlight, Ginny was as pale as a ghost. “Don't go in there, Harry,” she said tightly.

He looked to her, bewildered. “What?”

Her expression was hard to decipher in the darkness, but he thought it was something close to horror. “Don't you know when this is?”

He found himself at a loss. “No one does… It's a dream.”

She pointed at one of the houses across the street. Harry peered over the wall, trying to spot what she was indicating. The moon beams that streaked through the parted clouds lit upon the front walk, where he could see the distinct, lumpy shape of a carved pumpkin. Which explained the weather, as they were only common during…

It was Halloween.

The feelings that assailed him were too many and too simultaneous to be processed. He didn't know exactly what was happening, how it was happening, or even how he felt about it, but he made a conscious decision that, ultimately, it didn't matter. _It did not matter._ If his dead parents were inside the house, then he maybe he would fall apart then; but, until that moment came, he was finished with being confused and terrified. Enough was enough.

“We are not going to discuss this,” he said fiercely when Hermione began to part her lips, making her recoil. “We are going into the cottage, and we are going to get out of this dream.”

Ginny's expression tightened, and Harry knew she was probably worried about his state of mind, but, fortunately, she held her peace. Ron might have been, too, but after what felt like an eternity trapped in nightmares most everyone's default countenance was some version of worried, so it wasn't obvious. Scott's face gave away nothing, as was usual in such situations.

“Check the windows, I'll take the top,” Scott said shortly.

Harry moved forward with Ginny at his side, peering into the front window through cold glass as Scott leapt up the front of the building and hung from a first storey windowsill by his fingertips. There was very little light inside, but from what Harry could see the room was empty. He stared at the chairs and short tables; picture frames adorned the graffiti-free walls and a fire flickered in the hearth. He pulled his head back, refusing to fall into nostalgic regret. Everything he could see was long dead and buried and he should remember that.

“Looks empty,” Ginny whispered.

Harry nodded and put his back to the window, letting Ginny keep an eye on the interior whilst he watched the street. Ron and Hermione scurried back from the opposite window; overhead, Scott had clambered onto the roof.

“There's no one in there,” Ron reported. “We went to the side and the kitchen's empty, too.”

“Give Scott a moment,” Harry said. He huddled a bit closer to Ginny's back and wrapped his arms around himself. “Try to stay warm, we might have to run.”

It was a minute or so before Scott fell lightly from the roof, landing with a soft thud on the grass. “Nobody in the master bedroom or hallway. I can't see into the bathroom, and the curtains are drawn in Harry's room,” he told them. “How do you want to do this?”

Harry thought about that for a moment. Rushing seemed like the best solution, at first, but he didn't think they could all get up the stairs fast enough. If there was someone inside, they were most likely in Harry's old room. If they somehow didn't hear the door being kicked open, they'd hear the footsteps in the stairwell.

“Let's go up quietly, if we can,” he said.

Scott placed his fingers on the doorknob. “…I don't feel anything.” He stepped aside for Hermione.

“There aren't any protections,” she confirmed a moment later. “I believe it's already unlocked.”

Harry knew there should also have been a Fidelius over the cottage. Perhaps it had broken when Voldemort's spell had rebounded and the cottage was ravaged, but that obviously hadn't happened yet. The timeline seemed wrong, according to what Harry knew of that night. But, it was just a dream, after all. It could hardly be counted upon to be accurate.

The door swung open smoothly when Scott went through. Harry studied his surroundings with as much detachment as he was able to maintain, comparing them to what he remembered of their destroyed version. It was hard to equate the bare, vandalised ruins he had passed through with the well-furnished home he stood in. Some part of him had been afraid that his father's body might be present, left lying where he had tried to stop the intruding Dark Lord. But they encountered no one, alive or dead.

They followed Scott up the stairs, trying to step as silently as they were able. Harry remembered the stairs being extremely creaky when he had last gone up them, but that had been after years of neglect. They were much sturdier in their past state. After a quick pause outside the master bedroom in which Scott checked the loo (Harry peeked inside the bedroom, but didn't allow himself to linger), they gathered outside the closed door to Harry's room.

Scott made the hand signal that Harry was pretty sure indicated the command to breach and clear. Harry aligned himself with the doorway as they had practised. Scott braced himself, and kicked in the door.

They sprinted forward as the door swung all the way open, smashing against the inside wall. Scott moved left, Harry shouldered aside the rebounding door and brought his wand to bear, looking for targets. There was only one.

Voldemort stood in front of the cot.

Time seemed to slow. Scott was traversing his weapon, the barrel inching its way toward the centre of the room. Harry felt his lips move, tried to form _Expelliarmus_ , knowing that if he could take Riddle's wand away or even just stun him for half a second, Scott might put a shot in him, might swing the odds in their favour long enough to escape. Harry heard Hermione shouting something, felt Ron's footsteps pound on the floor behind him. Red light glared brightly in the corner of his eye, someone's Stunner.

Then he realised that time hadn't seemed to slow — it _was_ slowing. He felt as if he were moving through sand, his arms wouldn't cooperate; he could feel his own momentum and was unable to alter it. He had the sensation of falling. His wand floated upwards with a snail's pace no matter how hard his muscles strained. He watched as Scott rotated towards Voldemort like a leaf gently twisting in the breeze.

The lights began to fade; the Stunner disappeared. Voldemort's robe melted into the spreading blackness, leaving his pale head levitating against the dark. Then that, too, vanished, and the sounds that had become deep and roaring faded as well.

Then, there was nothing.


	27. How You're Bound

**27**

**How You're Bound**

\--- 

**Q: Startlingly few advances have been made**   
**in understanding the shape within the last**   
**several generations, and overcognizance remains**   
**incurable, if uncommon. Should we be worried**   
**that we've hit the limit of our understanding?**

_A: Not at all. Scientific progress is not predictable:_   
_there is no set rate for the expansion of knowledge._   
_Breakthroughs create avenues that lead to further_   
_discoveries, but breakthroughs can be few and far_   
_between. In fact, more often than not science is_   
_advanced through failure, rather than success._   
_When presented with many options (and what_   
_presents more options than the shape?), a_   
_process of elimination is a necessity until,_   
_eventually, someone happens across the way_   
_forward. Obviously, there is a methodology_   
_to all of it, but ask any scientist and they'll tell_   
_you that sometimes, it sure doesn't feel like it!_

_We may not be anywhere close to a complete_   
_understanding of the shape, but every new_   
_theory, quantifiable or not, takes us one step_   
_further. Who knows how near we may be to_   
_unlocking even larger pieces of our greatest_   
_puzzle?”_

_—Modern Science Periodical's Public Forum: Ask a Scientist!_   

\--- 

When Ginny regained consciousness, she blinked. Or, at least, she tried to.

Her eyelids were glued shut, perhaps as a prank — that was the first thing that came to mind. They were resisting her attempts to open them, she could feel her lashes tangled together. Her right eye was less obstinate: when light finally broke, it was a stabbing pain that quickly forced her to shut her that eye again. It took a few moments to become accustomed, not that there was much to see.

She was lying on her back on top of something soft, staring up at the ceiling. Her head _hurt_ ; every heartbeat sent a throb of agony coursing through her skull. The pain was especially acute above her left eye, and when she moved her eyebrows she felt something there that was sticky and sharply painful. She gasped involuntarily, her throat dry and rasping.

An answering gasp sounded from somewhere nearby. “Ginny!”

“Who's that?” Ginny said, trying to sit up. She moved her arms and there was a tug from her right wrist, along with a sensation like a pinch. “Ow!”

“It's Sophie! Here, I can help.” Sophie bent down and wiped at Ginny's eyes with a damp rag. “I didn't get all the blood, I think. Is that better?”

Ginny blinked a few times, and after a moment of adjustment was able to see clearly.

She was on the bed in the master bedroom, with Harry next to her. Ron, Hermione and Scott were on the floor lying on various cushions and other mattresses, their faces slack and their eyes closed. There was a chair in front of the nearby short dressing table, and the top of it was covered in papers. It seemed as if Sophie had been writing something.

Ginny sat up, fighting back a wave of vertigo. There was a clear bag of what looked like water hanging from the headboard next to her; a tube from it ran downwards and connected with her wrist. She looked more closely and saw with great alarm that it actually went _into_ her wrist, resting in her vein. She reached for it.

“Don't pull on it, it's taped in!” Sophie exclaimed, stopping Ginny. “One second, here… There'll be just a pinch.”

It wasn't the most comfortable feeling to have the tape removed and the whatever-it-was taken out, but it didn't hurt all that much. Sophie stuck a small bandage (decorated with colourful dinosaurs, for some reason) over the puncture. Ginny rubbed at her wrist and shook herself, feeling quite dizzy. “Got anything to drink?” she asked plaintively.

Sophie handed her one of the Muggle bottles of water. It was room temperature, but Ginny didn't much care. She drank it with relish, swishing the water around her cheeks to dispel the dryness. “So what happened?” she asked, wiping a drop from her lower lip.

“I don't know, for sure, but I think that Horcrux thingamabob did something to you guys. I've been trying to work it out, but, I guess I don't have to? Are you all going to wake up now?” Sophie said hopefully.

“The last dream ended, I think, and we were…” Ginny lapsed into silence, trying to remember. The nightmares in which she had been trapped were fading to tatters when confronted with the waking world. The things that had happened which had seemed so real, so horrible, were quickly becoming indistinct, losing immediacy.

With a sudden grunt, Harry rolled over, squashing his face into Ginny's hip. He jerked his head back and blinked up at her blearily. “…Did we make it out?” he said.

She smiled down at him, more relieved than she could say. “We're back!” She grabbed his hand, entwining their fingers.

He began to shakily push himself upright with one hand, unwilling to let go of her. “Finally. Are you—” he looked at her again, and his eyes widened with panic. “Ginny, what is that?”

“What?”

“Your head! What happened?”

Her hands flew upwards, running over her lips and nose. “Oh, God, did something happen to my face?”

“No, right here.” He gently pressed one finger onto her forehead.

 _“Ow!_ Bloody hell!” she yelped, leaning back. She felt the same spot and found a large bandage.

“I guess you don't remember,” Sophie interjected. “You were all standing around the table when the thing did whatever thing it does, and you fell when you were knocked out. Everyone is going to be kind of bruised; it's not a very good floor to fall on, downstairs.”

“That explains a few things,” Harry said, pressing a hand to his ribs. He had a sizeable contusion on one of his cheekbones that he didn't seem to have noticed yet.

“So I bashed my head on the floor?” Ginny said, wincing as she prodded at the bandage.

“Don't poke at it!” Sophie exclaimed. “But, poor Ginny, you were the unlucky one. You hit your forehead on the corner of the table, and then hit the same spot on the floor. You split your skin pretty bad…”

Harry was dismayed. “You should lie back down, here—” He pulled gently on her legs.

“I'm fine! It just stings a bit,” Ginny protested, refusing to admit how dizzy she was.

“You sure?” Harry's eyes were worried, and Ginny knew she needed to at least pretend to be all right or he'd find some way to blame her injury on himself.

“Did you forget I played Quidditch? I had worse than this after that collision during practise,” she told him not entirely truthfully.

He sat back. “Still. I should have caught you.”

She would have rolled her eyes if she weren't so disoriented. So much for pretending to be all right. And trust Harry to expect the impossible of himself. “You should have caught me when you were unconscious?” she said tartly. “Do you hear yourself when you talk, or does all the guilt stuff up your ears?”

He flushed slightly, avoiding her eyes. “Shite, Ginny. I just don't like seeing you hurt, all right?”

She definitely understood his sentiment. Too bad he never seemed to understand that it ran both ways. “It's not that bad. If it was, Sophie wouldn't have let me sit up, right?”

“That's right!” Sophie immediately agreed, and then proceeded to sabotage Ginny's argument by adding, “You might be dizzy for awhile, I don't think you're concussed, but you did lose a fair amount of blood. No fun getting hit in the head, and I know! Very vascular, and then your clothes get ruined. Like a nice summer dress, a blue dress, robin egg blue, with a knife that you weren't told had a spring, then Scott still owes me dress money, actually, I just thought of that…”

Ginny glanced down at herself, but she still had a sheet wrapped around her torso. She left it, not wanting to reveal any bloodstained clothing for Harry to see. “But I'm fine, more or less.”

“I think so, but I'll keep an eye on you for awhile,” Sophie said unhelpfully.

Ginny gave up trying to get Sophie to say the right thing, and leaned into Harry's shoulder. “And I'll be watching _you_ , bruise-face,” she told him.

“Yeah, I just felt that a second ago,” Harry said, closing the eye over the bruise.

“Harry, can you give me your wrist? I'll take care of that IV for you,” Sophie offered.

“Huh?” Harry looked down at his arms. “Whoa!”

“It's just to keep you hydrated, it's okay,” she reassured him.

“No, I know what it is, I just didn't expect it. Were we out long?”

“A little less than seventy-two hours,” she told him.

“That's not as bad as I expected, actually,” Harry admitted.

A loud moan sounded from somewhere on the floor. “Which one of you lot hit me with a Bludger?” Ron groaned. “Soon as I can stand, your broom's going right up your arse.”

“You hit the back of your head when you fell,” Sophie said, hurrying over to the mattress where Ron was slumped. “Can you see me?”

“'Lo,” Ron mumbled by way of response.

“Hi!” Sophie leaned over Hermione, who remained still. “…Well, she'll be up soon, I bet. I'll get that IV for you, Ron.”

“Get the what?” Ron said, confused. The exact moment when Sophie revealed the thing in his arm was made apparent when he then blustered, “Fucking hell, what'd you stab me with?”

“Language, Ron,” Hermione yawned. She raised up on her elbows, eyeing her surroundings sleepily. “Oh, we must have succeeded. Did I kip on this old thing? This isn't one of the target mattresses, is it?”

“Oh, no, those are filthy!” Sophie said. “How are you feeling? You ended up falling on Ron, so your knees took the worst of it.”

“I knew it: mid-collapse, and she still can't keep her hands off me,” Ron said, smirking towards Hermione.

“Prat,” she said with far more affection than Ginny felt was warranted. “More likely, even my subconscious knows a decent cushion when it needs one.” She started to sit cross-legged, and then flinched, halting the action. “Blast. I see what you meant about the knees, Sophie.”

“It's only bruising, nothing broken. They'll be extra stiff right now, too,” Sophie said.

“Has it been that long?”

“Not quite seventy-two hours.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise. “It felt like years. Or did it? It already seems so vague… I didn't expect the nightmares to be literal to the point that they would fade so quickly.”

“Maybe that's for the best,” Ginny said, thinking of the beach.

“It can't be that easy,” Harry said soberly.

Ginny sort of agreed, but she didn't want to encourage Harry's inevitable post-nightmare brooding. Fortunately, Hermione interceded by noticing her IV.

“Am I being fed intravenously?” Hermione wondered, raising her wrist for inspection. “I see these all the time on those hospital programmes that Mother watches.”

After assisting Hermione with removing the IV, Sophie walked over to Scott. He wasn't on a mattress, but rather sunk into a large pile of pillows, looking a bit like someone floating on a pond. Ginny noticed he didn't have an IV in his arm, which didn't seem fair.

“I didn't think it would take him this long,” Sophie fretted.

Hermione craned her neck to get a look at the Kharadjai. “Do you think there's something wrong? Or is he just being lazy?”

“It's the latter,” Scott said all of a sudden, his eyes still closed. “I woke up while Ginny was talking to Sophie, but I'm really comfortable.”

“You're such a _butt!”_ Sophie asserted. “I was worried, too!”

“What did you expect me to do? _Move?”_ Scott said with derision, as if the idea of him in motion was a ridiculous concept.

“I should kick you. I _will_ kick you!” Sophie declared.

She marched over to Scott and aimed an extremely gentle, ineffective kick at his right thigh. He opened his eyes long enough to catch her ankle, resulting in a giggling Sophie half-heartedly attempting to free herself from Scott's easy grip, a tug-of-war that quickly became an obvious pretence for them to touch each other.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “We weren't ever that bad, right?” she whispered to Harry.

Instead of agreeing, Harry's eyes darkened. “I never really gave us the chance.”

Ginny pursed her mouth in irritation. She'd somehow said the wrong thing. Well, that was just too bad, because she was stiff and her head hurt _a lot_ , and she wasn't up to dealing with one of Harry's regret-fuelled moods. “Just shut it, Harry,” she said shortly.

The look he gave her was startled rather than wounded, which made her feel a little better about being so abrupt with him. Down on the floor, Scott had relinquished his hold on Sophie and was trying to examine himself whilst moving as little as possible.

“So what's the damage? Did I break my ass?” he said.

“Actually, you fell back into a chair. You looked like you just fell asleep in it. It was sort of cute,” Sophie told him.

Ron raised his hands and dropped them in disgust. “Right, I've got a splitting headache, and the one bloke who can take the damage just has a sit down. Absolute bollocks.”

Ginny scoffed at him. “My headache is worse. You're not even bandaged, you big ponce.”

“What bandage?” Ron said, squinting at her. The light was fairly dim in the bedroom, and Ginny's hair had fallen over part of her face. She brushed it aside and leaned forward to show him her injury. “Oh, hell,” he said, impressed. “You're right, that is better than mine.”

“Told you.”

“What happened?” Hermione wanted to know.

“Hit my head on the way down, apparently. Really graceful of me,” Ginny said with a sigh.

“I feel okay,” Scott offered, as if that were supposed to help.

“You hush!” Sophie ordered as she walked back over to the dressing table. “So, do you guys know what happened?”

“The Horcrux forced us into a dream-state,” Hermione said. “We each had our own version. We were separate, but Scott prevented the Horcrux from affecting him quite the same as us. He was amnesic, as we were, but able to move between dreams. We're not certain if the dreams were broken by the revelations, or if they were terminated in order to focus on Scott once he moved on. The diadem may have been conserving resources rather than keep us suspended.”

“Or both,” Harry said.

“True. Perhaps the diadem allowed our dreams to end rather than try to maintain them after the disruptions,” Hermione agreed.

Ginny looked towards the door. “So it's still down there?”

“I didn't touch it, no way! I felt something happen, and then I went downstairs and you were all on the floor!” Sophie said with wide eyes. “I brought you up here and, well, you can see…”

She held up a few sheets of paper on which she had written. Her handwriting was obsessively neat but also very small, and Ginny couldn't make any of it out. Not that it would have mattered even if she could; there were larger symbols and formulas which looked like a load of nonsense to her.

Sophie continued, “I was working on unravelling the threads. They were pretty complex… I didn't want to just break them all, I didn't know what might happen to you.”

“That may have been for the best. We're still not sure what would have happened if we were to become injured or worse in one of the dreams,” Hermione said. “Unnatural removal could have been damaging.”

“It was a last resort,” Sophie said. “It hadn't been very long, not yet.”

Scott slowly sat up, pushing pillows aside. He had to use his hands to steady himself, and Ginny thought he was probably dizzy, too. “Where's Kylie?”

“She's fine, she's asleep in the motorcycle room,” Sophie explained. “It's a little after midnight right now.”

“Okay. We tag-team the diadem, and Harry kills it while it's still recovering, probably. Thoughts?” Scott said, looking to them.

Hermione raised a finger. “When you say 'tag-team', you mean…?”

“Me and Sophie will go full suppression on that fucker while Harry slices it. Or you, or whoever, if Harry's too banged up to swing a sword.”

“I can do it.” Harry slid off the bed, holding himself stiffly. It was clear his injuries were bothering him more than he was willing to show. “Where's the sword?”

“It should still be in the handbag,” Hermione said as she was helped to her feet by Ron, who was also looking a bit unsteady.

“I have your purse,” Sophie said. She went over to the wardrobe and picked up the handbag from the nearby floor.

“Hey, maybe someone else wants a turn,” Scott said to Harry.

Harry looked over his shoulder at Ginny. “How about you, Gin? Want to kill a Horcrux?”

Ginny didn't really want to _kill_ anything, though she knew the time might come when she would have to. But she supposed the diadem wasn't really alive, or a person. And she was pleased that Harry had asked her first. “Sure, I'll kill it. I owe it one for making me live through that embarrassment all over again.”

“What, at The Burrow? I never went in, what was happening?” Harry said curiously.

Ginny wasn't about to share the details of her dream, at least not with everyone else there. “Don't worry about it.” She gingerly pushed herself off the bed, keeping a hand on the headboard to remain steady. She wasn't quite as wobbly as she had feared. Hermione handed her the sword, which was quite a bit heavier than she had anticipated. Harry had made it seem easy to wield, but he'd always been stronger than he looked. “So I just…” She raised the weapon and mimed cutting downwards.

“Er…” Harry reached hesitantly towards the weapon. “Actually, I just remembered that it hurt my hands, last time, when the locket sort of blew up, maybe you should let me—”

Ginny glowered at him. “I can handle it.”

He quickly dropped his hands. “Right. I was just warning you.”

They filed out of the room, ready for battle. Or, hopefully, an execution. Sophie and Scott seemed confident enough that they could keep the diadem from attacking their minds again. They'd certainly have a better chance with two Kharadjai on the job, and it wasn't like they could just leave the diadem sitting there. It had to die, even if only because Ginny didn't want to have to eat sitting on her bed.

She brushed into Scott on the way out the door, accidentally putting her foot over his and tripping him up. He stumbled into the door frame, catching himself with a hastily raised hand. “Sorry,” she apologised.

He merely shrugged in response. “Don't squeeze too hard when you swing,” he advised. “Might be able to avoid the jolt that Harry got last time.”

The bedroom had been darkened to spare everyone's vision when they awoke, and out in the hallway she was able to notice that Scott's complexion was unusually pale, and his eyes were a bit too bright. “Are you all right?” she said, unsure if any concern would be accepted, coming from her.

“It was quite a ride. I just need to walk it off,” Scott said easily.

He seemed genuine, though she doubted he would admit to any weakness. Their relationship was temperamental, at best, but she was starting to think that maybe it was time to try and move beyond that. He had just saved them, after all (even though Sophie might have done the same, given a little more time). Ginny didn't trust him to do what was best for Harry's emotional well-being, or anyone else's, for that matter. She probably never would. But she saw the facts of what had happened, and that meant seeing that Scott had fought, killed, and even _died_ for the cause. And, now, she had been confronted with irrefutable evidence that Scott had suffered for it, too.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, turning towards him as the rest of the group descended. “I'm not giving you a free pass for all of your shite,” she warned him, “but… thank you for doing whatever it was you did.”

“I didn't do it for you,” he said coldly. Then, a corner of his mouth raised in an understated smirk. “I didn't know what the fuck I was doing at all.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I know that, I've been saying it from the start.”

“So you have as much faith in me as ever. I can rely on that.”

They gathered at the foot of the stairs. Scott and Sophie moved to the front of the group, both displaying readiness in their stances. Scott's face was remote and cold, per usual, but Sophie's was a bit more readable, holding a seriousness and competence (and even a little fierceness) that was strange on her normally inviting features. Ginny hadn't seen the woman be much of anything besides wide-eyed and friendly. She tried to school her own expression into something harder, hopefully at least moderately deadly. She briefly wished for a mirror.

“Go,” Scott said, and the two Kharadjai rushed down the steps into the kitchen.

Ginny did her best to keep up, but her legs were stiff beneath her and her centre of balance swayed with every step. Considering that she'd taken the worst fall, perhaps she hadn't been the best choice to wield the sword. Not that she was willing to admit that. She could do what was needed and collapse afterwards, if she had to. The bloody Horcrux was the reason her head hurt so much to begin with, and it deserved what was coming.

She didn't stop to ask what was happening when she saw Sophie and Scott standing in front of the table, the diadem before them. There were no signs and sounds of a struggle, but no doubt they were doing whatever it was they did with the 'shape', and Ginny didn't need to be told to hurry. She stepped between them, raised the sword over her head (fighting hard not to tilt with the motion — the floor seemed to move beneath her and she knew she couldn't stay upright much longer) and swung it downwards as hard as she could.

She didn't have the best aim: the blow was off-centre, shearing unevenly through the diadem. It didn't seem to matter, though. There was a horrid, all-encompassing shriek that cut through her eardrums like a spike, and the sword slammed into the table, reverberating up the metal.

She carefully lowered the sword point to the floor, taking the weight off her trembling arms. The two pieces of the diadem had flown off the table from the force of separation. She stared at them, waiting for a reaction. None came.

“Don't tell me it was a fake,” Harry said flatly.

“It can't be. We _know_ it isn't,” Hermione said.

Scott stepped on the nearest piece of diadem, flipping it over with the pressure from his foot. It clattered tinnily against the floor, and Ginny could see that the shorn edge was smoking slightly. “It was real,” Scott said.

Sophie bent down to retrieve the other piece. “It's dead. I can tell for sure,” she confirmed.

Harry seemed satisfied by that. “I guess they're all different.”

“Did it put up a fight?” Ron asked curiously. He held out a hand and Sophie gave him part of the diadem.

“I don't have a comparison point, Scott fought the locket, or talked to it, I guess, I wasn't here,” Sophie said.

“It was tired. Or surprised,” Scott said, rubbing at his eyes.

Ron held the broken diadem up for Hermione to see. “The sapphire is still all right. Maybe we can fix the rest of it?”

“Perhaps. But the sword likely destroyed all the magic, if there was anything left of Ravenclaw's spells after Riddle finished with it,” Hermione said with a touch of sadness.

“Was it an important artefact?” Sophie said sympathetically.

“It was a remnant of the Founders. Those aren't easy to come by, especially such powerful ones.” Hermione looked wistfully at the shattered diadem for a long moment and then took a short breath, her expression hardening. “But, it had to be done.”

“I guess we'll have to tell the Ravenclaws about it eventually. But it'll be after all this, so the whole precious-Ravenclaw-diadem-slicing might not seem like such a big deal after we've saved everyone,” Ron supposed.

“That would probably smooth things over,” Harry agreed. “And if they aren't saved, there won't be anyone to complain.”

“Always look on the bright side of life, mate.”

“Wonderful, now there will be wanton destruction based on the assumption there's no tomorrow,” Hermione muttered to Ginny.

“I don't know. Could be fun,” Ginny said cheekily. She decided to extend the olive branch a bit further, and said, “How about you, Scott? You like to blow things up, I reckon.”

“I've been known to, on occasion. From time to a time. I wouldn't, it would be remiss if I were to claim other things. My sheen avoidant camouflage, in lines left, threaded through. Maybe, did I tell you about the time I was at the Hill and they wanted the, I can't— it's just a long story,” Scott rambled, his words strange and halting. Ginny stared at him as he leaned heavily against the wall.

Harry took a step towards him, confused. “You all right, mate?”

Scott ran a noticeably trembling hand down his face, but did not reply.

Sophie began to walk over to him, her face etched with concern. “Scott? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, probably,” Scott said, and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed.

***---~**~---*** 

Sophie's first thought when Scott fell down was to find the shooter.

Her second thought was that she was in a basement, there was no sniper, no one had attacked him, and the diadem was dead. He hadn't eaten or drank since his recent awakening, so he couldn't have been poisoned. There had been no magic affecting him. Something else was wrong. Something unexpected, and serious.

Which meant her third thought was that she had to find out what was wrong, so she could help him. He needed her help. So _move!_

She darted forward, crouching next to him and gently patting his cheeks as she found his pulse. “Scott? Scott?” she said, doing her best to sound calm, pulling open one of his eyelids. His pupils were not dilated, and his pulse was fast, but steady.

Shadows fell across her as the Primes gathered around. No doubt they were all confused and worried, just as she was, but making sure Scott was stable was more important than reassuring them. He had slid down the wall when falling, guiding his descent and lessening the impact. She quickly ran her hand along the back of his head, and was relieved at the lack of blood. His airway was clear, and it didn't sound like there was any fluid in his lungs. She pressed on his fingernails, looking for signs of shock.

“What happened to him? What's going on?” Harry asked.

“He passed out,” Sophie said distantly, still working to be sure that Scott was not severely injured.

It didn't make sense for him to react that way if he was, she didn't understand. Scott rarely lost consciousness for longer than a few seconds even when receiving critical wounds. He was Combat Corps toughened, integrationist trained and about as hardy as the Imperiarchy could make someone. He could be depleted, a state most quickly achieved by healing, but exhaustion from healing required him to actually _heal_ , and he had done nothing but sleep for almost seventy-two hours without so much as a paper cut on him.

Or so she had thought. She would have noticed if he'd been bleeding as he slept under her care. And he definitely wasn't bleeding currently, nor suffering from past blood loss. Perhaps a major internal injury? His head was not bruised or swollen. She tugged a knife out of one of her pockets and ran it up the front of his shirts, cutting both together.

“Turn around, please,” she told the hovering teens.

Hermione, Ron and Ginny complied, stepping back. Harry edged backwards, but said, “Is this the Horcrux?”

“Harry! I'm trying to help him, and I'm asking you to be polite!” Sophie said, trying to modulate her tone to be more authoritative and less shrill (she already spoke in such a high, girlish pitch that when she really got upset she could hit the notes that made Lila call her 'dog whistle', which Sophie _hated)._

“I'm trying to help, too, I just want to know—”

“Harry, what, are you trying to have a butcher's at Scott's bits?” Ron said loudly from where he stood with his back to the scene. “Because it sort of sounds like that, mate.”

“Sod off, she's not taking his trousers…” Harry groused, but he retreated to a safe distance and turned away.

There was no severe bruising to be found on Scott's torso or back, his ribs were intact, his abdomen was pliable… She couldn't be absolutely certain there was nothing physically wrong with him, not without tools other than her hands and eyes, but he really seemed to be just fine. Her examination had been primarily to make certain that he hadn't been severely bleeding or broken, something she could patch up until he could take care of it. Anything further than that, and the best thing was to put him back in a bed and let his involuntary healing reflex handle it.

But her past experience with his physiology told her that he wasn't suffering from physical trauma, or reacting to it like a baseline due to depletion. Scott was sick. She wanted to believe he had just caught something that would run its course, though she knew that was very unlikely; baseline illnesses were rarely a match for Primarius-level physiology, and all three Kharadjai currently in the field had gone through the inclision grids and medical checks that ensured they wouldn't carry any diseases from Solus with them.

Given all that had just happened, Sophie knew that the most probable scenario was the one she least wanted to accept: it had something to do with the shape. And that meant Scott might be beyond her help.

She would have to cross that bridge when she came to it. First things first. She pulled Scott's shirts back together as best she could. “I'm going to take him upstairs.”

“What's wrong with him?” Hermione asked with concern.

Sophie wasn't sure if she should admit that she didn't know. Maybe it would be better to pretend that Scott was fine. That was probably what he would have done. On the other hand, it was a bit too late to conceal his weakness from his Primes after he had collapsed right in front of them.

“I think it's a Kharadjai thing,” Sophie hedged. She scooped Scott up into her arms — he outweighed her by about a hundred pounds and was a full fourteen inches taller. His weight wasn't a problem, but he was so much bigger than she was that it was hard to manoeuvre without bumping him into something. She tried to shift him so that his head rested on hers, as her shoulder was too low. “Just so you are — oops — aware, don't carry someone who's unconscious this way, it could be bad if they hurt their spine or neck.”

She managed to get Scott up to the master bedroom with a minimum number of collisions, though the stairs were somewhat tricky. She went up sideways, letting Hermione guide her. Once Scott was settled onto the mattress, she stood over him, debating her next move.

If he truly had been depleted, somehow, then he wouldn't inadvertently destroy the IV. And if he did, then he might be on the mend. So she inserted the catheter into his arm as the Primes watched, their confusion and worry palpable. She shared in it, but didn't have any answers for them.

“Is the diadem still affecting him?” Hermione asked.

“No, I checked,” Sophie said. She placed a hand back on Scott's cheek, just to be sure, but other than the usual threads to the house there was no magic on him. She watched him for a few silent minutes, pretending to fuss with the IV to prevent any questions as she made her decision.

Ultimately, there wasn't really much of a decision to make. Barring any new developments, she would watch, and wait, and hope her fears were unfounded.

Taking a short breath, she turned to the Primes and pasted a smile on her face. “I think he's just tired. And he's not the only one! I'm impressed you're all moving around so well after everything, but it's _really_ late, and you should probably go to bed.”

“Didn't we just sleep for three days?” Harry said, though the dark circles under his eyes betrayed his fatigue.

“No, she's right. It wasn't restful, and we're all injured,” Hermione said.

Ron frowned. “So there's nothing we can do?”

“Not right now. But, I'll let you know if I need help with anything,” Sophie told him.

“I think maybe he's got the right idea,” Ginny said, wincing as she gingerly touched her bandage. “I could sleep for yonks.”

“Ginny, be sure to come see me when you wake up so I can take a look at that,” Sophie said, pointing to Ginny's lacerated forehead.

“Try an _Episkey_ or two, Ginny, it might help if it's bothering you,” Hermione suggested. “I have some potions we can look at tomorrow, also.”

“It's not that bad. We should save potions for worse things than a bump on the head,” Ginny said.

“You'll all feel better with some real sleep, I know it,” Sophie said, and gestured towards the door. “Shoo! Go sleep! I'll stay with Scott, just in case.”

They filed out, though Harry paused at the threshold, reluctant to leave. “You'll tell us if anything happens?” he said.

“Of course, I promise,” Sophie said.

He nodded. “All right. And thanks, you know, for… the tubes, and everything.”

That garnered him a more genuine smile. “You're so welcome!”

When he left, the smile slipped from her face. She sat on the edge of the mattress and picked up Scott's right arm, cradling it as she checked his pulse again. It was still steady. His arm was heavy and warm; idly, she pressed her own wrist against his, observing the size differential. She decided not to call Lila yet, not until she had something to report other than Scott's sleep state. Her instincts were making her anxious, but she had no evidence that there was anything seriously wrong.

She took off his shoes and socks, pulled the blankets up over his legs, and then carefully crawled over him and settled in on the other side of the bed, curling up next to his side. She usually was pretty good about keeping her attraction to him in check (or so she thought; Lila had offered a differing opinion), but sometimes she did allow herself her little fantasies, when it seemed harmless. It was innocent enough to put her cheek on his shoulder: friends could do that! And that way she would be aware if he awoke and began to move. It was practical.

She counted his heartbeats until sleep took her. Her dreams were strange, all disjointed and made more of sensations than events. They bled into each other and were too abstract to last past the point of waking. When she awoke, she didn't know how long she had slept, but it didn't feel like very long. Someone was speaking to her.

“What?” she mumbled, lifting her head from the warmth of Scott's shoulder.

It was Scott who was talking. She had awoken in the middle of his sentence. “—altogether grey,” he said.

She smiled happily and started to sit up. “Are you feeling—” The smile vanished when she saw his face. “—better?”

His forehead was beaded with sweat, hair plastered to it. His shirt was damp and his skin flushed red, blotchy and bright. His eyes were open, but they were glazed, unfocussed. They stared upward at something only he could see.

“Twine is twisted, twined, another desert of scratches,” Scott muttered. “The fullness of months breathes rhyme. And rhythm of anchors creates new tides. Not mine.”

She brought her hands to his head slowly, taking care to appear non-threatening. He seemed incapacitated, but she knew better than to put much stock in his appearance as an indicator of his harmlessness. Scott was a weapon honed to its finest point, and needed to be treated as such when he was not in control of himself. Fortunately, he did not react when she placed the back of her hand to his heated skin.

“Shoot, you're burning up,” she whispered. “Scott? Scott!”

It took a few soft pats on his chest, but he finally looked at her instead of past her. “Scully? Hey, Day.”

“No, it's Sophie. See?” She moved a bit closer to him, pushing her hair away from her face.

“Sophie,” he repeated. “I know you. You always look like a heart. I love your heart.”

Her heart actually fluttered a little at his nonsensical, wonderful endearment, but the important thing was that he recognised her, and was therefore much more likely to cooperate. “I love your heart, too. I need to move you into the bathroom, okay?”

“Wha's in there?” he said.

“Cold water so your brain doesn't boil,” she said lightly. “Can you walk?”

“Only all the time,” he scoffed. “These lines will lead and be led, canvassed.”

She was losing him again. “Scott, can you look at me? Please?”

His eyes snapped back to her. “Sophie.”

“I'm here. Can we stand you up, now?” She put his arm over her shoulders and lifted, more or less forcing him out of the bed. He ended up on his feet, but was far from steady.

“You have the best amazing tits, Sophie. They're so awesome,” Scott slurred.

“Oh…!” she trilled, eyes wide. “That's… sweet of you to say. Here we go, we're moving now.”

As they made their slow way over to the bathroom she was relieved that Scott did nothing more than lean heavily against her and occasionally try to shuffle off in a different direction. She didn't want to have to fend off any advances, or even injure him further if he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

“This floor is cold,” Scott mused when they stepped into the tiled bathroom. “But it's room temperature, an extension of the same geometry and measured air. This perceived differential is due to a process known as conglutination.”

“Conduction,” Sophie corrected. “Hey! What are you doing?”

“I wanna stand in the warm Euclidean plane,” Scott hazily explained as he tried to turn around and return to the bedroom.

“No, you're too warm already, that's the problem,” Sophie said, gently guiding him back onto the tile.

“Scott?” someone said from the doorway. Sophie turned around to see Hermione leaning in, one hand on the door frame and curiosity stamped on her features. “I— I couldn't sleep, my knees don't want to cooperate no matter what side I lie on. I popped in to see if Scott was well, or at least better,” Hermione explained, staring at Scott as he swayed on his feet. “That must not be the case…”

“Hermione, you're a star,” Scott said in wonder.

“That's me: ever so popular,” Hermione said with a weak smile that didn't overcome the concern in her eyes.

“He means in the shape, you're a bright Prime,” Sophie interpreted.

“I am the Lizard King,” Scott proclaimed, walking straight towards the doorpost.

Hermione, to her credit, did not laugh. “I think you need to look at reality and not the shape, for the moment.”

“He can't tell the difference,” Sophie said, guiding Scott towards the bath.

“Christ, it's cold in here,” Scott mumbled as she put her arms under his and lowered him into the bathtub.

Normally, she would have been on his case for his language, but she was going to cut him some slack given the situation. “It's not cold, you're running a high fever.”

Scott looked right at her, and said matter-of-factly, “Our threads will not intersect the way you want them to. The reason in me is dying.”

She pressed a pale hand to his flushed cheek. “Scott, you're scaring me. Please come back.”

“What can I do? Is there anything?” Hermione said helplessly.

Sophie put one hand behind Scott's head, protecting the back of it from the tile wall, and lay the other over his arms. “Turn on the cold water. But, back away quick!”

“I'm sorry about the decorations, Hermione, don't be bright at me,” Scott said, watching her through uncomprehending eyes.

“I'm not… _bright_ , at you, you're forgiven,” Hermione reassured him. “This is going to be very uncomfortable, but I promise it's for the best. All right?” She turned on the water, and it shot with a hiss from the shower head and poured over Scott, pooling in the folds of his clothing.

He immediately began to struggle. “Agh!” he coughed, turning his head against the spray and kicking his feet. He nearly threw Sophie's arm off before she tightened her grip, knowing that if he began to fight with full strength she had no chance of keeping him restricted. “I can't swim in this! Fuck, it's so cold—”

“It's okay, you're just in the shower—” Sophie said, trying to get him to look at her.

“Get off me, we've got men in the surf!”

“Scott! You're in the tub, you're okay—”

“I can't breathe—”

“Yes, you can, take a deep breath!”

“Sophie, _help!”_

His pleading tore at her, but she stubbornly held him down. “There's air, you can breathe, see?” she lowered her face and gently blew on his mouth and nose. Hermione, demonstrating some quick thinking, moved the nozzle so the shower no longer struck Scott's face.

It took a minute, but Scott subsided, relaxing into the tub and leaning his head back, staring at the ceiling. Sophie cupped water in her hands and ran it over his hair and burning ears. He was shivering, arms wrapped around himself protectively as he witnessed whatever madness the shape was inflicting on his mind. He was having an episode of sensitivity that was very similar to what many overcognizants experienced. And that made Sophie so afraid for him that it was all she could do to keep wiping water over his heated skin and not demand answers that he wasn't capable of giving her.

She had been young, but she remembered the fits that her cousin had gone through before he had been sent to Ara Collis, spoken of in hushed conversations amongst the family. Not all overcognizants were born totally incapacitated: age and experience brought a greater connection the shape, and, with it, greater dangers to the mind. Her cousin had never been fully functional, but she knew of the rare case when someone toed the line, ready to slip over. She had always been aware that Scott was highly connected to the shape, experiencing physical symptoms of disorientation during upheavals that left Sophie merely discomfited.

But she had never seen Scott go through anything like what she was witnessing. He would have been medically discharged for certain if he had. Which left her wondering if all the training he had received and effort he had exerted were finally taking their toll in a terrible fashion.

She blinked away a sudden image of Scott, limp and vacant in a bed at Ara Collis, and hoped she was just overreacting. Of course, on the rare occasions that Lila had confided the same fear to Sophie, Sophie had told the other woman that _she_ was overreacting. Sophie desperately hoped she wasn't going to have to regret those platitudes.

She took a short breath and looked back at Scott's eyes, determined to concentrate on the problem at hand. His fever seemed to be dropping, and the shock of the water had brought him back to reality, at least somewhat. His gaze was no longer unfocussed, if not entirely lucid.

“How do you feel?” she asked him, stroking a hand across his hairline.

“Cold,” he said, blinking rapidly. “That feels good.”

“The cold?”

“Your hand. You have such tiny hands, I like them. You don't paint your nails.”

“I do sometimes,” she protested, looking at her petite fingers.

“Nail polish is weird.”

“Well, you know how us field girls accessorise. I just almost never think of it anymore, even at home,” she said, trying to sound cheery. “I bet Hermione or Ginny have some polish; what colour should I paint them?”

“I have a charm for that, actually,” Hermione offered.

“No, nail polish is weird,” Scott grumbled insistently.

“Okay, it's weird,” Sophie agreed, just happy he was making even a little bit of sense. “Are you—”

“Your hands are like little doves, they always flutter and land on things so lightly. Then you wring them when you worry and they get all red,” Scott rambled. “You shouldn't be red, you should be, you are, is like porcelain. Silk and porcelain. And emeralds. And twisty chocolate hair.”

Sophie was grateful that Hermione had been there to assist, but she was starting to wish that she were alone with Scott, at least until he regained a filter between his brain and mouth. “My hair _is_ twisty, it's true,” she said, unable to truly engage with such a strange, and yet somehow flattering, description of herself. “We can turn off the water soon and get you back to bed.”

“Chocolate hair, but, was not, um, chocolate like your cake.”

“My cake?”

“The big cake you had. With frosting like this.” Scott held up his thumb and index finger, measuring about half an inch apart. “It was green.”

Sophie searched her memory for a cake fitting that criteria. “…At my birthday party? When I had it at the cliff house?”

“With the frosting like this.” Scott made the motion again, though the measurement was quite a bit different. Sophie assumed he had it right the first time.

“You do love your frosting,” she said fondly, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He had let it grow out; she actually couldn't remember the last time he had it so long. She knew, to her disappointment, that he would probably have Lila shear it back down soon.

“It was good, not, not the cheap stuff, sugar and… sugar. You always buy so much. And I just ate it. You always spend too much. Could have got something that does more. Bullets. Not frosted.”

He wasn't gaining much in the way of coherency, but his fever had gone down, so she was relatively hopeful that he would sleep it off soon. “It was for the cake, Scott, I don't need bullets for a party. You were supposed to eat the frosting. What else are you going to do with it?” she said.

He shrugged, though his shoulders weren't in sync. “I dunno. I wanted to lick it out your pussy.”

 _“Okay…!!”_ Sophie squeaked, standing up like a shot. She put her hands on Hermione's shoulders and steered her towards the door. “And out _you_ go—”

Hermione's cheeks were scarlet. “Yes, I— that's all right, then. I'll just leave. Goodnight,” she stammered, mortified. She limped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

Sophie turned around and went back in, shutting off the water (though it seemed like Scott might still benefit from a cold shower). She couldn't be mad at him, he had no idea what he was even saying, or admitting, which was incredibly frustrating because if she couldn't be angry, what was she supposed to be? Calm, probably. Accepting of his words as a by-product of his delirium. Using her medical detachment to prevent herself from visualising Scott on his knees with frosting on his fingers and his face between her thi— nope nope NOPE _._ It didn't matter how unfair it was that he could say something like that without real consequence. His words were a symptom of a continuing problem. Scott was sick and she had to help him and she wasn't going to think about frosting or fingers or his lips and tongue lapping up two kinds of sweetness from her…

…Until later. When she was alone.

The audible chattering of Scott's teeth was enough to move such thoughts to the back of her mind. With a bit of difficulty, she managed to get him to raise his arms so she could pull off his ruined shirts. The next stage was a bit trickier: she draped a towel over him and reached underneath it to swiftly remove his pants and underwear in a single, easy motion. His modesty thus preserved (even if he wasn't in a state to appreciate it), she sat him up further and wrapped the towel tightly around his midsection, using a second towel to dry his hair.

He suffered through her ministrations without comment, blinking slowly. He seemed to be growing sleepy as the shock of the cold water wore off.

“Time to stand up,” she told him, neatly folding the towel she had used on his hair and setting it near the sink.

He looked down at his bare chest. “Have I lost weight?” he said vaguely.

“Some. You need to sleep and eat more, I've been telling you that.” She took his hands and raised him to his feet.

“I want a shirt,” he demanded, hunching over uncomfortably.

“I know you do. If you go lay down for just a second, I'll get you one.”

She was able to move him back to the bed without him giving her any trouble or saying anything inappropriate (not that he was ever especially appropriate even when coherent, but there were levels to that sort of thing). She gave him the shirt he had asked for and was pleased to see him put it on without assistance, even if he did struggle somewhat. She debated whether or not to offer him a pair of pants, but by the time he had the shirt on and had his head on the pillow, he was shaking again.

“Are you cold?” she asked, already knowing the answer. He needed to be wearing more below the waist than a damp towel. She knew he always slept in boxers and a t-shirt, minimum, so she retrieved a pair of underwear and slid it up to his knees. “Can you do it the rest of the way?”

She had to guide his hands to the waistband, but he pulled up the underwear himself and she took the towel back to the bathroom, leaving it with the rest of the sodden clothing on the floor of the shower. Returning to him, she pulled the covers up to his chest and tucked them in around his shoulders. He instantly relaxed, going limp, though there was still a slight tremor in his jaw.

She crawled over him once again and shifted up to the headboard, cradling his head against her stomach. “Better?”

“I don't wanna see so much anymore. I'm scared,” he said drowsily.

Tears prickled in her eyes — she kept her head up and breathed evenly through her nose, not wanting him to see that she was scared, too. But she didn't have any answers, so she held him a bit more tightly and slowly stroked his hair, the comfort being all she had to offer. “Hold you up, when you fall down… Hold you up, when you fall down…” she sang quietly. “This isn't just, the way we were, it's how we're bound…”

She knew she wasn't much of a singer, and Scott's slide into slumber probably had more to do with his exhaustion than her unschooled voice. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed as he slipped into what was hopefully a sightless sleep.

She waited about forty minutes before she carefully extracted herself from the bed. Stepping out into the hall, she shut the door and took her comunit from her pocket. She called Lila, hoping the other woman might have some answers.

Lila answered after a few rings, her voice raspy with sleep. “Yes?”

“Something happened with Scott and I don't know what it is,” Sophie said, discarding any pleasantries.

There were some rustling sounds, perhaps as Lila sat up in her bedding. “What happened?”

“They broke the spell on their own and woke up, and we destroyed the object, but Scott looked pretty bad. And then he fainted,” Sophie told her friend.

“Exhaustion?”

“I don't think so,” Sophie said anxiously. “He isn't injured. He woke up a little while ago and he had a high fever and delirium.”

“You might want to ask Hermione, when it comes to magic—”

“No, no he was… he was stuck in the shape. Shape sick, and hallucinating,” Sophie explained. Lila was silent for long enough that Sophie felt compelled to speak again, adding, “Um, I think he's better. I put him in the shower and the shock brought him back a little, and his fever went down. But, do you know…”

Sophie paused, unsure of what the most delicate phrasing would be. It was an uncomfortable line of questioning, to ask if Scott had demonstrated any recent symptoms of overcognizance. She wasn't a family member (though she felt like maybe she almost was — close enough, right?).

Lila still didn't speak. Sophie fidgeted nervously, the silence weighing more with every passing second. Unable to stand it, she said, “Maybe it's nothing! He did some strange things in the Horcrux dream, I'm told, so it's probably related, it's that. If he had to shape the whole time and then the spell breaking that he was tied to, if he was working on it right then, maybe it… You know, something new. And weird,” she finished lamely, not sure where she was going with her attempted explanation.

“I've never seen him have an episode like what you're describing without a physical root cause,” Lila said. Her tone of voice was cool, unsentimental: a façade. It might have worked on someone else, but Sophie had been Lila's friend for too long to be fooled. “He's never said anything to indicate otherwise.”

“Right, so, it could be something new, maybe a one-time thing. I mean, he uses the shape all the time and it's not a problem for him.”

“If he'd had an episode like this, he would have washed out,” Lila said firmly.

Silence descended once again, haunted by what had been left unsaid. Scott's last evaluation had been awhile back. And even if his current episode was the first, it could easily be the first of many.

Sophie didn't want to be entertaining that thought, never mind have to speak it. “Okay, well, I'll keep an eye on him and let you know when he's recovered. I'll make him call you,” she said.

“Yeah, tell him I want to talk.” Lila didn't put any particular emphasis on 'talk', but no doubt Scott would interpret it as a threat irrespective of how Sophie relayed the message.

After the short conversation, Sophie immediately returned to Scott's side. He was still sleeping, breaths slow and even. She crawled over the covers and placed her head back on his shoulder. Whatever should happen next, she would be there.


	28. While You Unravelled

**28**

**While You Unravelled**

\---

 

_“Of the sixty-four major planets within the  
_ _Republic, only seventeen have history  
_ _which predates the Imperium. Common  
_ _wisdom would have it that this is due to a  
_ _combination of the Imperium's aggressive  
_ _colonization efforts and its equally strident  
_ _attempts to destroy records pertaining to  
_ _the nation-states and lesser confederations  
_ _which it absorbed. As is often the case, common  
_ _wisdom gives us only part of the picture._

_The Imperium, even at its height, comprised  
_ _less than thirty percent of the Republic today.  
_ _The shadows of the Emperors loom large over  
_ _our culture because we allow them to. The  
_ _Imperium was not so mighty, not so vast, as it  
_ _seems we prefer to imagine — certainly, as the  
_ _Imperium wanted itself to be imagined._

_Would-be Emperors should, over the course of  
_ _his book, take note: Even a single world is  
_ _beyond a single mind, and your reach does  
_ _not so much exceed your grasp as it equals it.  
_ _The qualifier being, neither will ever match  
_ _your estimation.”_

—K. J. La Forge, Foreword to _Gods of Dark Space: The Last Epoch of the Kharadjai Imperium_   

\---

Tonks considered herself an open-minded sort of woman. She made the effort to befriend people, to make them feel welcome. The world was hard enough without everyone being grumpy. If people spent more time being pleasant and less time trying to get ahead, perhaps getting ahead wouldn't be so costly.

As such, she felt that her presence had been keenly missed at Shell Cottage. She hadn't been around much like some of the other Order members had — she'd been busy on the outside. Her original plan of action had been to stay with the Ministry as long as possible, working from within as a spy. In retrospect, that had been damn optimistic considering how much the enemy knew of her background. The skirmish at Bill's wedding had put an end to all that, along with the disappearance of Arthur's two youngest. Even the dullest Death Eater could put those facts together, and after the Weasleys had been forced into hiding, the rest of the Order had decided that pretending innocence was pointless.

Tonks hadn't let the loss of her Ministry position stop her from fighting back. But whilst she had been out and about, finding Muggle-borns before the Snatchers did, other aspects of the Order's operation had been neglected. Namely, getting to know (and retaining) their allies. Or, at least, one particular ally.

Granted, retention didn't seem to be that much of a problem. Lila Kharan appeared determined to stick around, no matter how blatantly the residents of Shell Cottage ignored her. To be fair, most of that treatment had been coming from Order members other than the Weasleys. Though Molly was the only person on close terms with the enigmatic woman, Bill and Arthur had established some manner of peace with her presence.

Remus had reported that Harry had claimed Lila could be trusted, though the reasons for that faith had gone unexplained. Tonks reckoned that Harry was at least a fair judge of character. In practical terms, though, the point that had kept anyone from attempting to force Lila to leave was her relationship with Molly; that, and the fact that Lila already knew too much, and it might be safer to keep her close at hand.

Tonks thought they could do better than that. Perhaps all Lila needed was another friendly face? The woman was a fighter, and a deadly one. Tonks had seen that with her own eyes. The Order needed fighters, as many as it could gather (though mass recruitment was impossible when they didn't know whom they could trust). It was foolish to ignore an asset, especially an asset resolute enough to disregard the fact that she had been implicitly refused. And _especially_ an asset that had already proven herself fully capable of taking life when necessary. If Tonks could get Lila to open up a little, perhaps the Order would be more willing to include the woman.

Lila was definitely disinclined to be excluded: Tonks had seen her listening unobtrusively during meetings. When Remus had gone to see Harry, Lila had more or less bullied her way into providing him with transport. Perhaps her insistence had come off as calculated to some of the others, and Tonks agreed, to an extent: she reckoned Lila didn't do much of anything without ample consideration. But Tonks had watched as Lila shot at Death Eaters, standing sentinel over Harry's friends. That had left a more positive impression, and she wasn't sure why the Order had been so reluctant to take advantage of the skills Lila obviously had to offer. Was the woman really so unapproachable? Or did the boys just resent a tough bird like Lila forcing her way into their club?

That was a bit unfair of Tonks, she knew. Remus certainly didn't think like that. But she couldn't help but wonder if Lila's buxom build and flawless features had been a mark against her. Tonks' own femininity had been an occasional handicap in the Aurors, so she could relate. Lila's help might have been more readily accepted if she looked like Kingsley.

Or perhaps that was rubbish, and it was just that no one knew what to make of Lila. Molly could be a commanding woman, but she didn't involve herself much in the Order's decisions. Tonks had more pull — or at least she had _better_ , she was putting her arse on the line same as everyone. If Tonks said Lila was all right, they would put Lila out there once, at least, just to see what she could do.

Tonks definitely wouldn't mind having another girl on board. She got along with most of the blokes just fine, but sometimes all the testosterone got a bit stifling.

She found Lila out behind the cottage, near the sea. The statuesque blonde was contemplating an object in her hand — it looked like a Muggle mobile. Tonks had never been obsessed with technology the way that Arthur was, but she had been curious, on occasion. The 'firearm' Lila had used at Hogwarts had been loud, messy, and deadly effective. Prior to that, Tonks had never seen Muggle weapons at work. It had been sobering to realise that the Muggles were quite a bit more dangerous than common wisdom held.

But if the Order could have a dangerous Muggle of their own (or something close to it; Lila was obviously a witch to some degree), that would be something, wouldn't it?

“Lovely day,” Tonks said in greeting. She strode over to Lila and stuck out her hand. “Tonks. I know we've met, but let's make it proper.”

Lila was slow to respond. She studied Tonks with cool composure, her eyes a dove grey that would have been soothing were they not so unreadable. Tonks began to feel a bit silly, standing there with her hand out, but didn't want to back down.

After a long moment, Lila tucked her Muggle device back into a pocket and took Tonks' hand. “Lila.”

“That's a pretty name,” Tonks commented. “Do you spell it with two Ls, or is there an H on the end, as well?”

“Neither. It's spelled the same as 'Lyle-lah', just pronounced differently.”

“Is that how they say it in America?”

“It's how I say it,” Lila said shortly.

Tonks had assumed that Lila's exclusion had been primarily the work of suspicious, overprotective men, but it seemed as if the alienation might not be quite so one-sided. Lila was a bit guarded, to say the least.

“Well, I like it,” Tonks told her. They lapsed into a short silence, punctuated by the ocean's constant swells. “…It must be dreadful to be trapped here all the time, I don't know how you do it. I'd go mental in about a day, full stop. Do you like to read?”

“Sometimes.”

“I do, myself. Bit partial to the sorts of books that you don't read in polite company, if you catch my meaning. Bloody awful writing, half the time, but it's not the _prose_ I'm after. Oh, but don't tell Remus. I reckon he thinks I'm a bit scholarly, if you can believe that.”

The corners of Lila's mouth twitched upward, and Tonks thought they might be making progress. “We're entitled to our little vices.”

“That's what I say! I ran into Sirius once when he was leafing through one of those old porn magazines he was so proud of, the great prat. I think he expected me to be appalled, but I was just narked 'bout all the shite he'd given me for my choice of reading material, and there _he_ was with bloody big tits splashed across the page, one of those bints what looks like they're about to tip over — oh, no offence—”

“None taken.”

“Anyway, after that I told him I didn't want to hear a bloody peep out of him even if he saw me flipping through an issue of _Huge Fat Cocks._ He gave his word of honour, though he was laughing hard enough to near wet himself. He always liked a good laugh, even if it were on him…” Tonks trailed off, the memory hitting her harder than she had expected.

“You miss him.”

“Yeah. I just hadn't thought about that in awhile.” Tonks took a short breath, steadying herself and getting back on topic. “I wanted to come out and say that I know things haven't been too friendly 'round here, save for Molly. But I hope you can look at it from our view. We're trying to survive, and we don't know who we can trust. You want to help and that's brilliant, we need it. But, it would be even better if you could tell me more than just, your brother is friends with Harry and you fight the Muggle way.”

“What would you accept?” Lila asked, her expression unchanged.

“Well, you snuffed out some Death Eaters, so that's a pretty brilliant start,” Tonks said with a congratulatory smile. “Could tell me why you're so keen to hang about?”

“My brother and I have divided our mission. As I told Bill, we're soldiers. My job is to protect the Weasley family. The spell on the cottage takes care of that, so I'm free to assist the Order.”

It was more than a bit strange for a young woman to claim that she and her teen brother were soldiers. Tonks decided to focus on the second part of Lila's statement for the time being. “Is that why you helped Remus?”

“He needed a ride, and I can drive.”

“What else can you do?”

Lila's bearing became more rigid. “I'm trained in the use of a variety of Muggle small arms. My primary combat role is fire support, I'm a first-tier support gunner with expert-level training and veteran-level combat experience. I'm also qualified as a second-tier combat medic.”

“That's all quite impressive,” Tonks said dutifully, trying not to let her confusion offend the other woman. Lila clearly took pride in her qualifications, even if they didn't mean much to Tonks. “But, what does that mean, more… practically?”

Lila leaned back against the wall. “It means I know how to fight, and I'm good at it.”

Which Tonks had already seen, if briefly. At least Lila was actually answering questions; the woman didn't seem quite as unfriendly as some of the Order members seemed to think she was. “How did Dumbledore recruit you?”

“My brother approached him. Scott offered support to Harry, and Dumbledore agreed to make that possible. I was part of the package.”

“So you just up and volunteered?” Tonks said a bit sceptically.

Lila fixed Tonks with a look of mild condescension. “If you think Riddle is only a threat to wizarding England, you need to think again.”

“Well, I won't try to argue with that!” Tonks said, readily conceding the point. “Who gave you all that training, though?”

“No one you would be familiar with.”

“It's a secret, eh?”

“There are a number of things I'm not at liberty to tell,” Lila stated.

Tonks had been an Auror long enough to have given similar answers to people, and she felt that she had hit upon something that Lila was never going to explain no matter how hard she was pushed. She also had the notion that Lila's disclosures had little to do with Tonks' questions or manner — Lila seemed ready to talk for her own reasons.

“I won't ask you to break an oath, but I'm sure you know that's going to make it harder to trust you,” Tonks said.

“You don't have to trust me. You just have to use me.”

Tonks intended to do just that. “We might get a chance to. I popped in for a meeting tonight, we just got word that the Snatchers are about to go after some poor sod. We've got someone who might be able to tell us who it is.”

“Have you confronted them directly before?” Lila asked.

“No, we've been lucky so far. Always one step ahead, usually gone by the time they show up. They aren't exactly punctual: load of old wankers wearing costumes and playing soldier. 'Course, they get a lot more than we save. We can't be everywhere.”

“You can make them worried that you might be.”

“Easier said than done. If we weren't so bloody outnumbered…”

“I think I could make an impression on them, given the opportunity.”

That was what Tonks wanted to hear. “Come on, then! We're supposed to meet in about an hour. The others'll give you a chance, I'd wager, if you attend.”

“We'll see,” Lila said, not sounding all that convinced.

For the next half hour or so, Tonks continued trying to coax whatever information she could out of Lila. It wasn't easy; Lila immediately shut down any attempt to discuss her origins beyond the flat in Ottery St. Catchpole, and never forgot herself no matter how convoluted the conversation became. It could be frustrating, at times, but Lila never became hostile, even when Tonks strayed towards more restricted topics. She seemed to be willing to meet Tonks halfway in gestures of friendship, becoming less aloof with every passing minute. Tonks was pleased to see her assumption proving true: Lila's reserve was difficult to crack, but not impossible.

“—and he had all of them, every last one. For a guy who disparages my decorating, he sure as hell made use of my throw pillows. All I could see were his feet sticking out,” Lila said.

“What did you do?” Tonks asked.

“I jumped on him.”

“Yes!” Tonks cackled. “Did he scream?”

“He goes, 'Lil, you fat lard, get offa me!'. I'm like, 'I'll lay on my pillows whenever I want.'”

“He sounds like quite the—” Tonks broke off when the door to the cottage opened, and Remus came hurrying out. He was breathing hard, and his wand was clenched in one hand. “Oi, luv! Did you just pop in?” she said.

“We found the target, and there's not much time,” Remus said quickly. “We've a Portkey inside, Alastor and Bill are already there.”

“Then why don't they grab them and go?” Tonks said, confused.

“The Snatchers arrived first,” Remus said grimly. “This relocation just became rescue.”

Bad news, indeed. The Order preferred to avoid direct confrontation by necessity; if Alastor and Bill hadn't already left, they must have thought it possible to win the fight.

“Who else?” Tonks said, following Remus back inside.

“Just us and Charlie. And there's no time to wait for more.”

“Well, lucky for us, I thought ahead.” She nodded in Lila's direction. “Just us and Charlie, plus one.”

Remus cast a concerned glance in Lila's direction, though he did not protest. “You're coming, as well?” he said to Lila.

“Where's the Portkey?” she asked.

“Charlie has it in the sitting room.”

“I'll meet you there,” Lila said, heading towards the stairs.

Remus spoke quietly to Tonks as they hurried towards the front rooms of Shell Cottage. “You believe she can be trusted?”

“You really think she can't, after all that's happened?” Tonks shrugged. “Her brother is with Harry right now, we all know that. If they wanted to sell us out, I think we'd bloody well be sold.”

“No, I agree,” Remus said with a faint smile. “But no one else has been allowed to join without revealing more of themselves.”

“I know, luv. Extreme circumstances, and all that.”

Charlie was waiting for them, a large, half-melted candle on the table nearby. Tonks assumed that it was the Portkey.

“Wotcher, Charlie,” Tonks said, giving him a quick hug. “Been awhile, yeah?”

“I thought I wasn't going to get to see you again before I went back to Romania,” Charlie said with a smile. “Ready to show the Snatchers how things really work around here?

“I wouldn't miss it.”

Lila came back downstairs with a baggy black jacket pulled over her green t-shirt, carrying an enormous rucksack in one hand. She joined them, glancing down at the candle with an odd look on her face. “What is that?” she said.

“The Portkey,” Remus told her. “Have you travelled by one before?”

“No. What do I need to know?”

“The first time can be a bit disorienting. Here, I should probably carry that for you,” Remus offered. Lila nodded and handed him the rucksack; Tonks watched Remus' eyes widen comically as his arm stretched downwards to a painful final jolt when he took the full burden of Lila's items. He caught himself before he fell over, leaning back against the weight.

Lila put her hand back out. “Do you need me to—”

“No, I've got it,” Remus said, embarrassed. “Everyone touch the Portkey, we've little time to waste.”

Tonks had never liked travelling by Portkey — always made her a trifle nauseous, not that she had ever told anyone. The Portkey activated and she felt the familiar tug somewhere deep in her midsection. When she landed — managing to stay on her feet and even look slightly dignified, to her delight — she looked up just in time to see Lila hopping back up after rolling neatly across the ground. Not a bad solution for the impact, considering she was a first-timer. Tonks vividly remembered ending up face down after her first jaunt through a Portkey.

She didn't know where they'd ended up, but it was somewhere in the country. They were in the middle of grazing land, old stone walls zigzagging across the hills and valleys like grey lines across crumpled green paper. Several shaggy cows on the other side of a nearby wall watched, incurious, as the Order party collected itself. Down the hill was an animal pen with a collapsed roof, and past that stood a lovely little cottage just off a narrow road, surrounded by hedges.

Bill and Moody were huddled behind one of the stone walls along the edge of the cottage's back garden. Tonks crouched to stay out of line of sight, letting the wall shield her as she made her way over to them. She didn't see any Snatchers or Death Eaters, but they must have been there, somewhere. Probably already inside.

Moody didn't waste any time with greetings. “There's four inside; could be five, if we missed one. Two more in the front, watching the road.”

So at least they weren't outnumbered too badly, considering how lopsided the numbers usually were. Tonks peered over the top of the wall, but the reflecting light off the window made it impossible to see inside the cottage. She thought she could hear a raised voice, however; it sounded like a man.

“We'd better get in there before they decide they've learned enough,” Remus said.

“Before they run out of things to steal, more like,” Moody growled. “We're going to do this proper, with an Anti-Disapparation Jinx. No one leaves.”

“I'll flank around the right. When you hit the back, I'll take care of the sentries and rush the front door. Watch your fire in that direction,” Lila said with casual authority. From her rucksack she removed a metal construction with a dull finish, long and angular and covered with strange ridges and patterns. With a sharp click, she attached to it a translucent curved box filled with what looked like tiny spears, and then unfolded one end of the machine with another snap, lengthening it.

Moody eyed the device with a wary combination of suspicion and respect. “All right. But make it quick.”

“Of course. Tonks, on me.”

Charlie was looking at the narrow door into the back of the cottage. “Think I'll just be in the way. I'll slip around the side, see if there's a window I can use.”

“Should be good at that, all the times you popped out for a twilight snog,” Bill said mockingly.

“Hark who's talking, brother. We've both been out a window or two,” Charlie retorted with a grin. “Try not to start without me.”

“No, move in teams,” Lila instructed. “Someone go with him.”

“She's right,” Moody said tersely. He might have been snappish because the new girl was giving orders, but it was hard to tell with Mad-Eye. 'Terse' was just about the only way he said anything. Tonks had spent a considerable amount of time thinking he virulently disliked her before she twigged on.

Bill sighed. “And I'd thought my window climbing days were over.”

“Come on, old man: one more for the memories,” Charlie told him, and together they went down the wall towards the side of the house that was in shadow.

“On me,” Lila said again to Tonks.

The stone wall ran to the right, where it was bisected by another wall running perpendicularly, creating four corners. Lila swiftly traversed the obstacle, vaulting over in a low position that kept her weapon pointed towards the cottage. Tonks would have liked to imitate the motion, but didn't trust herself not to muck it up with her unpredictable clumsiness.

Lila paused for a short moment halfway along the second wall, looking towards the sky. “What is it?” Tonks whispered.

Lila shook her head in reply, and kept moving. At the front of the cottage the road wound off in either direction, over the hillocks. Two men in shabby robes stood watch in front of a faded door set in weathered stone. From where she was, Tonks couldn't see inside, but she could hear the raised voice and what sounded like a woman pleading.

Crouching down below the lip of the wall, Lila took off her jacket and placed it over her hair. There was a crumbling gap that sunk about a foot into the uneven stone; she braced her weapon in the opening and peered through. The men standing sentry appeared bored, leaning against the wall and paying attention to their surroundings only peripherally. It was clear they had been in similar situations before, and had probably been in their current one for some time.

Tonks felt the tension course through her, taut, unbearable. She was an instrument strung too tightly, strings thrumming with the slightest vibration. Waiting wasn't her strong suit — she preferred action, immediately if at all possible. She didn't handle anticipation all that well, but did have experience with it. She was able to keep herself from fidgeting well enough. She didn't want to spoil her aim.

She glanced at Lila, who was adjusting her own aim with calm intent. “…I'm ready,” Lila murmured after a moment. “I'm going to fire four to six times. Don't let the sound freeze you up.”

Tonks remembered how loud the Muggle weapon had been at Hogwarts, even a hallway away. Lila had been using a much smaller one, then. Tonks didn't know if bigger meant louder, but it seemed logical.

They crouched there for what felt like forever, measured in what was actually about ten or so seconds. The sound of the signal popping over the house was overridden by the immediate report of Lila's weapon. Tonks had been expecting it, but that didn't help all that much. The sound jabbed deep into her ear, overloading it.

She actually saw the projectile; or, well, she supposed that might be impossible, but the path of it was so clear that it was as if she could actually see it carve through the dusty sunlight. The Snatcher closest to the wall reacted a bit like someone might when struck unconscious, with a jolt and a wobble, toppling over. He put out a hand to stop himself, which was odd considering how much of his brain must have been pudding at that point — the hand brushed limply against the door as he collapsed on the step. The second man didn't have much time to react, not doing much more than turning his head to look. Tonks saw him bend his shoulders forward a bit, folding in around the two shots that hit his chest. The last shot hit him in the head, or at least Tonks thought it did; Lila fired a fourth time, but it was hard to say where it went. The Snatcher fell onto his back, unmoving.

Tonks vaulted over the wall as the second man was still coming to rest. The ringing in her ears drowned out the details, but there were spells being shouted inside the cottage. She sprinted the short distance across the garden, grass flattening beneath her feet. The window nearest the door shattered outward in a flash of purple light. Remus and the other blokes must not have had quite the advantage in surprise they had hoped for.

She burst through the front door, eager to turn the tide. She nearly ran right into a Snatcher on the other side. He shoved at her, trying to push her back out the door. She caught him by the wrist and put her wand right up to his ribs, blasting him with a non-verbal curse at point-blank range. He sank to the floor, twitching.

She hopped over his shuddering form and took cover in the doorway to the loo, ascertaining that the fighting was raging between the small room at the front (where the window had been broken) and whatever rooms were at the rear. It seemed as if Remus' collective team had advanced until meeting the main force of Snatchers in the kitchen, who had reacted swiftly enough to lock down both entryways. Tonks ducked back into the loo as a hex splintered the jamb, threatening her eyes. She cursed colourfully as wooden shards cut into her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

A sharper cacophony rose above the rest, shattering through the spells. Tonks looked cautiously around the edge of the pitted door and saw the tip of Lila's smallest weapon poking through the broken window. Of the three remaining Snatchers, two had been bombarding the back of the cottage whilst the third had spotted Tonks' entry and removal of his comrade — it was he who had hit the doorway. Lila, unopposed, had gone to the window and fired into their unguarded backs.

Two of them were dead or incapacitated before they realised they had been flanked. The third, the one closest to Tonks, fell to the floor, but then reached underneath the hanging cloth covering the nearby table. Through the curtain of the tablecloth he pulled a wriggling, shrieking form. Tonks at first thought it was one person. Then, she realised it was actually two people: a young boy, probably a first- or second-year, and a woman who was most likely his mother. The woman had wrapped herself around the boy, shielding him from the violence, and had refused to let go even as he'd been pulled out from their shelter.

“Stop!” the Snatcher wheezed. He yanked the two civilians close to himself and wrapped an arm around them, using the other to press his wand to the boy's throat.

The battle ceased, falling silent with eerie rapidity. In the sudden cessation, Tonks could see dark blood soaking through the Snatcher's robes. Lila hadn't missed: the man had been shot through the neck, and was losing blood at a rate that guaranteed he wouldn't be a threat for much longer.

“Let me Disapparate,” the Snatcher said weakly, becoming paler by the second.

“You haven't got long,” Moody growled from somewhere in the back of the cottage.

Remus' voice came then, reasonable and calm. “We can help you, but only if you let us.”

The Snatcher did not respond, though Tonks wasn't certain if he _could_ respond. He had ignored Remus and Mad-Eye, instead staring at Lila with mute terror and rage. Her aim had not wavered, fixed on the top portion of his head. His hand was beginning to shake so badly that Tonks wasn't sure he could cast properly. She wasn't willing to bet the boy's life on it, though.

“If you let them go, I promise you won't be harmed any further,” Remus said evenly, having also witnessed the Snatcher's fixation on Lila. As he spoke, Tonks edged out of the loo and moved silently closer, waiting for someone to speak again.

Moody's harsh voice was just loud enough to be perfect. “Don't be an idiot—”

 _“Expelliarmus,”_ Tonks hissed.

At such a low volume the spell lacked power, but the Snatcher also didn't have much of a grip. When the spell struck him, his wand flipped out of his loose hand and clattered onto the floor. He whipped around in Tonks' direction and put his hand out to retrieve it. The motion proved too much for his drained body to handle, and he fell over with a soft sound of dismay. Tonks quickly Summoned his wand out of his reach, though he made no more attempts to recover it.

The woman let out a shuddering sigh of relief and restrained horror, clasping the boy even more tightly to herself. Lila stepped away from the window to enter through the door, and in the sunlight streaming through the broken glass Tonks could see the boy staring down over his mother's shoulder, eyes wide. He was watching a thin stream of blood course over the tile floor, snaking out from the Snatcher's neck.

The woman suddenly stood and clapped a hand over the boy's eyes. “We should go,” she said with an undertone of hysteria, steering him towards the back. She flinched as her toe caught on the dying man.

Tonks had dealt with a few people in a similar state. She gently took the woman by the shoulders and led her out to the back garden. Charlie followed, making sure the door was shut behind them. The woman slumped onto the grass, legs unable to support her. She looked dazed, in shock. The boy was subdued, but kept glancing towards Tonks and Charlie with an expression of unselfconscious awe.

“You all right?” Charlie said quietly, drawing Tonks aside.

Tonks looked blankly back at him for a moment before she realised he must have been referring to the state of her face. “Bloody hell, is it that bad? Don't tell me I look like Mad-Eye. I'll never have another snog.” She ran her fingers over the cuts, wincing at the sting.

“It's not that,” Charlie assured her. “Worst scratch is right here, on your nose, and it's not deep. I just wondered if everything went well at the front.”

Tonks gave him a mocking smile. “Lila's fine and fit, don't worry yourself, you big sod.”

“Stuff it,” Charlie said, stepping back with a grin. “Last time I show concern for you.”

“Don't need it, do I, I've got — Remus!” Tonks said as her significant other emerged from the cottage. She quickly examined him, making certain he wasn't injured. “We got a prisoner, or…?”

“They're all dead,” Remus said, looking weary. He was a gentle person at heart, more prone to the scholarly pursuits than Auror's work. She loved him for it, but the demands of the Order weighed on him more than they did her, at times. “Lila and Bill are watching the front, Moody's searching for whatever information he can find.” Which, in the present situation, meant searching the bodies. Not a pleasant task, but one for which Mad-Eye was better suited than many in the Order.

“Better him than—” Tonks started to say, only to stop when Remus grasped her chin, tilting her face upwards.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he said with concern. “These aren't deep, but…”

“It's fine, luv, just a few scratches. Makes me look tough, real experienced. I'm like Mad-Eye, now, but still wicked hot.” She winked at him.

Remus' mouth titled slightly upwards. “You won't get any argument from me,” he said fondly. “Have Molly clean you up when we get back, there won't be any scarring. It's all from debris.”  He turned and crouched down next to the traumatised woman, who was staring at nothing. “Is there anything inside you need to take with you?” he asked.

“What?” she said distantly, jolted out of her stupor. It took a bit of coaxing on Remus' part to get her to focus, but she directed them towards a few irreplaceable heirlooms and a small stash of money. Remus hurried inside to retrieve the items whilst Tonks kept the woman company. Charlie had approached the boy and they were discussing Quidditch, neatly diverting the child's attention from his mother's ragged state.

“I was in Hufflepuff. I thought we were safe,” the woman said tearfully as they waited.

Tonks had questions, but they would have to wait for a safer locale. Remus emerged and set several laden pillowcases next to the woman, apparently the only thing he could find for quick carrying. “Are we ready?” Tonks asked.

“Moody and Bill are locking up. They're just fixing the window,” he said. The Order had learned it could be advantageous to hide their actions from brief scrutiny. If one of the Dark Lord's people stopped by, it would look as if the Snatchers had already left.

Lila trotted out the door and brushed past Remus, her long weapon still at the ready. “Are they wounded?” she asked Tonks.

“These two are all right,” Tonks said, surveying the mother and son they had rescued. “You?”

“Fine. Is that all superficial?” Lila waved a hand towards Tonks' face.

“Only my pride that's hurting,” Tonks told her with a jaunty smile, ignoring how much the expression stung.

“'Lo, Lila,” the boy said.

“Hi, Trevor,” Lila said casually, as if they'd run into each other on the street.

“Where's Scott?” Trevor curiously inquired.

“Off somewhere with Harry, per usual.”

“Do you know, like, has he said anything about Kylie? She never wrote me back,” Trevor said solemnly.

“Kylie's fine, she's with Scott.”

Trevor grinned with relief. “Oh, that's good. Did you use that gun on those gits? It was wicked loud!”

“Trevor!” his mother gasped. “Come over here!”

“Mum! I'm talking to Lila, she's Scott's sister, she was at the party like I told you,” Trevor protested. He turned back to Lila. “What'd you do with the other gun, the smaller one? You had it at school, I saw.”

“I still have it,” Lila said.

“Trevor! _Now!”_ his mother ordered.

“Listen to your mom,” Lila advised.

“All right…” Trevor sighed, walking very reluctantly to his mother's side. He seemed a resilient little bloke, that was for sure.

Bill and Mad-Eye left the cottage, magically locking the door behind them. Remus wrote down the information needed to access the safehouse they were going to, and then burned the parchment once Trevor, his mother and Lila had all read it.

Tonks remembered how excited she had been to get her Apparition license. The process had since lost its charm, especially now that she was so often using it to flee instead of for simple convenience. She gripped Lila's hand tightly and stepped sideways through the void.

Their destination was an old warehouse somewhere in Exeter, Tonks wasn't exactly sure of its location. It had once belonged to an associate of Mundungus who had since passed away. Dung had acquired it cheaply (and presumably illegally, though no one had asked him for the particulars) and had been using it to store goods for his 'business'. It was far more space than he actually needed, given the small valuables he usually trafficked in, so he had given most of the place over to the Order's needs.

It was an enormous, musty old structure of faded, water-damaged brick and puddled concrete beneath a crumbling roof, mounds of industrial rubbish piled everywhere. The dirty tiled windows were cracked, often missing panes, and the entire place smelled strongly of damp. The most habitable areas were within an upstairs area adjoining the warehouse proper, what had once been offices. The Order had cleaned up and quickly converted it into a makeshift living area, installing a few temporary walls and getting the water running again. Trevor and his mother would be the first to inhabit the repurposed offices, though they would not be the last.

“What is this place?” the woman asked, appearing more exhausted by the second. Fatigue followed shortly on the heels of adrenaline.

“A safe house for people like yourself, those persecuted by the Ministry,” Remus said, leading the woman over to a rather hideous lime-green settee. “As I'm sure you've gathered, we strongly disagree with current government policy.”

“But I'm a half-blood! So is my son, and I haven't seen his father in more than seven years…” she faltered, pressing a pale hand to her face. “I'd thought we were safe…”

“So what did they want with you?” Moody said, stumping over to her. She quailed beneath his mismatched gaze.

Remus wisely stepped forward, placing himself between the woman and Moody. “It would be helpful to know why those men attacked you. Anything you can recall could be of great use to us.”

“They… asked after the Andersons,” she said delicately. “Neighbours of mine.”

“Muggle-born?” Remus put forward.

“Yes. They went away on holiday when things took a turn. I told those men that I didn't know where they'd gone.” She shuddered. “I lied. But if you hadn't arrived when you did, I don't know what I might have done…”

“But you didn't. That was very brave of you,” Remus commended her. His demeanour was firm yet calming, a soothing authority. It was such an irony, his way with distraught people, when knowledge of his condition would often _make_ people distraught.

“Trevor's the brave one,” the woman said with a tremulous, watery smile, running a hand over her son's tousled hair. “He tried to fight before they grabbed me. Don't know how I raised a Gryffindor, but here we are.”

“I'm all right, Mum,” Trevor said, standing up straighter. He'd been energetic and seemingly untroubled until a bit after their arrival at the warehouse. The shock of events was beginning to set in, and his posture suffered accordingly.

Bill leaned in to speak softly next to Tonks' ear. “Charlie and I are going back to the cottage to let everyone know how it went,” he said, and Tonks knew that by 'everyone' he meant primarily his mum and his wife. “We'll see you there.”

“I want to thank all of you,” Trevor's mother was saying quietly as Tonks focussed back on her.

“Just doing our job!” Tonks said. Then she paused, considering the semantics. “I mean, sort of. Or is this a hobby?”

“I prefer to think of it as a duty,” Remus said dryly.

“Right, not something for bob-a-job week, is it? 'Cept for all this cleaning. Glad I missed that.”

Lila popped back into the room, which momentarily surprised Tonks as she hadn't noticed the tall woman leaving. “Trevor, I'll make sure Kylie will write to you.”

“Can't I go see her?” Trevor asked.

“Trevor! Don't be rude,” his mother scolded. “And I want you to stay here.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Lila said with a sympathetic tilt of her head. “But she might come to you, if we can work something out later.”

“Is there anyone we can contact for you, to let them know you're all right?” Remus asked. “Family, perhaps?”

Trevor's mother nodded. “My sister, she lives in Lisburn. I can give you the address. They won't miss me at work for another two weeks, I was on holiday. Not really by choice, either. Just as well. They've been letting a lot of people go, lately, I was probably next. New management,” she said grimly.

“There's a lot of that going around,” Remus said.

“I know. I work at Gringotts — or _worked_ , I suppose, soon enough. The Ministry's taken over. Anyone who isn't the right sort is getting shown the door. You can guess what sort I am.” The woman sighed deeply. “Doesn't matter much now, does it?”

Remus nodded sadly. “I'm sorry that this has happened to you and your son. If it's any consolation, you did the right thing.”

“I hope so,” the woman said quietly. Trevor had fallen onto the settee next to her, and looked to be near to sleep. “At least he'll be safe here.”

Tonks knew that would be true for a time, and she hoped it remained as such for the duration (whatever that might be). Those trapped within the safehouses could emerge to find a world they no longer recognised, should things progress poorly. But Tonks preferred not to dwell on such things, and had always been able to brush the thoughts aside. She felt quite good about what they had accomplished, actually. Mother and son, safe and sound, and a few more Snatchers who wouldn't be bothering any Muggle-borns. Didn't want to pat herself on the back too hard, but it was a fine job. On to the next!

Whilst Remus was finishing up, Tonks took the opportunity to go after Lila, who had slipped out again and was downstairs in the warehouse proper. The self-proclaimed soldier was poking through a heap of disassembled Muggle machinery with the toe of her boot. It didn't seem as if she were looking for anything in particular.

“Find anything valuable? I'd be surprised,” Tonks said, coming up next to Lila. “Dung's already been through here, I expect, squeezed it for every last Knut.”

“This used to be a truck transmission,” Lila said absently, looking down at the mangled shell. “Would he know what Muggle scrap is worth?”

“He had a stack of tellies in here, when we first came in. I just about nicked one; thought Remus might like it. He knows his way around Muggle things better than I ever have,” Tonks said. Remus' partial estrangement from the wizarding world was not by his choice, but his status as a second-class citizen had forced upon him the knowledge necessary to navigate the Muggle world with a familiarity many Order members lacked.

“Not how to drive, apparently. Lucky for me.”

“Hey, lucky for all of us. You really came through, it was bloody spectacular, especially the bloody part. Too soon? Shite, I think I've disturbed myself. Sod it, point is, we owe you one.”

“I did what I had to,” Lila said levelly, though she looked a bit more pleased at Tonks' praise than her words let on.

“You get it done, that's for sure. Got that whole Queen and Country, stiff upper lip thing that I do admire, really. Does it sound like I'm taking the piss? I'm not, promise. I suppose you might not have a queen, come to think of it. Well, I'm sure you can make it work.”

“Bow to your Queen, worm,” Lila said quietly to herself, as if remembering something.

Tonks blinked. “What's that?”

Lila looked at her with an expression of apology. “I need to make a call.”

“Oh. All right, I'll just bugger off, then. See you later?”

“Next mission,” Lila said, walking away.

Tonks rather thought she'd see Lila before that, though there was no telling when the Order would have to act again.


	29. Interior, Grimmauld Place

**29**

**Interior, Grimmauld Place**

\---

 _“In regard to [the previous missive], I_  
 _have always felt that honesty is the best_  
 _policy, up to a point. Honesty is difficult_  
 _for everyone, not just people in our_  
 _position. Maybe our use of it will encourage_  
 _the Primes to match us, maybe it won't, but_  
 _I think you usually get back what you put in._  
 _Really, I'm not sure you have to try so hard._  
 _Spend enough time with people and the drama_  
 _tends to come to boil at some point or the other._  
 _Haven't you had a Prime call you on something?_  
 _Or vice versa? You can't lie to the shape, God_  
 _knows we've all tried to. If you have to be real_  
 _to some degree, then you're going to have some_  
 _degree of real moments.”_  


—Digital missive from Primare D.B. Wallace to Primare Holly Juspeczyk  
                        (Archival of the Republic, Historical Correspondence)

\--- 

“So what do you think I should say?” Ginny asked, looking back down at the letter.

Hermione considered that. The missive from Bill had come at an inopportune moment, given the state of the group. She herself was a bit hobbled, her knees bruised as they were, and she knew that Ginny was still dizzy no matter how often the youngest Weasley denied it. Harry and Ron seemed mostly well, if sore, but Scott… Well, no one but Sophie knew what had happened to Scott. Hermione hadn't seen him since his episode in the early hours of the morning.

Hermione and Ginny had been lingering over their supper when Bill's letter arrived. He wanted to meet with them at a date and time to be specified. It remained to be seen if he could help them vis-à-vis Gringotts. Ginny had erred on the side of caution, and hadn't told him what information they sought. Hermione very much hoped he could offer them some form of help; the task at hand was daunting, to say the least.

“…Tell him that you'll write back to him soon,” Hermione settled on. “We can't all go right now, but I don't think we have to. We could have Lila bring him to the park again, it worked well before.”

“Maybe I should write to her, too,” Ginny said, tapping her quill against her lower lip as she considered it.

“I don't think there's any need, not so long as Sophie can ring her for us. I suppose we could even contact Bill through her, assuming he's at Shell Cottage.” Hermione thought about it, and then shook her head. “No, I think we should see Bill in person for something this delicate. The post is what he's accustomed to, and it's not as if we can meet him right away.” Another thought occurred to her. “Bill won't be a problem, will he? Acting on the behalf of your mother, that is.”

Ginny shook her head. “Not Bill. He might mention it, but he wouldn't try to make me go back.”

“I'm not sure it's still a relevant issue, to be honest. She hasn't even tried to contact you recently.”

Ginny sighed. “I'd like to think she gave up, but that doesn't sound like Mum.” She lowered the quill to the parchment and began writing. “I'll just ask when he can come to us.”

That was for the best, Hermione knew, as it was unclear when Scott would recover. She assumed it would be soon — likely within the day, as precedent indicated. She was a bit surprised he wasn't up and about already. Of course, the nature of his malady remained undisclosed, and was perhaps distinct from the wounds he had suffered before. Though his resilience was decidedly formidable, she understood that his ostensibly indomitable nature was an impression he'd always done his best to further. Kharadjai Primare he might be, but she knew he wasn't invulnerable, regardless how much he desired everyone to think he was.

His dementia had been troubling, despite his history of rapid convalescence. Scott was generally so self-possessed, so frequently calculating, that watching his mind misfire had been strikingly discordant, almost frightening. Hermione suspected that his unconscious struggle with the Horcrux had affected him in ways that Sophie either didn't understand or wasn't willing to explain. Perhaps both.

Whatever the case was, the timing could have been worse. With their overriding task once again entering the planning stage, they would all have at least some short time to recover. There were a number of issues on which they could move forward without the input of the full group. Hermione, especially, had things to do: though it was true that her past research into Horcruxes had yielded little, that had been only one avenue of inquiry. She had the new tomes from Dumbledore to study, and was also determined to take another crack at developing a spell for viewing thermal emissions.

Sophie had an extraordinary gift when it came to the manipulation of magic, and it stood to reason that same ability might be applied to the creation of magic. It was a possibility that had been mentioned before, and Hermione thought it time to put it into action.

“I'm going to speak with Sophie,” Hermione told Ginny.

“Don't tell her I've finished eating,” Ginny said, scribbling away.

Hermione frowned. “What? Why… Oh, did she want to examine your injury?”

“It's fine, she doesn't need to poke at it.”

“Like you do, you mean? I believe she would be a bit more qualified,” Hermione chastised. “She's going to have to look at it sometime.”

“Whatever,” Ginny groused.

Hermione stopped briefly at the doorway to the dining hall to make certain that Kylie wasn't doing spellwork without supervision. She found Kylie under the tutelage of Ron and Harry, who were attempting to teach her how to hold and angle a Shield Charm. Their DA experience made them more effective teachers than might be expected. Kylie was successfully blocking low-level Stinging Hexes, though she flinched behind her shield with every attack. Hermione didn't know if Kylie was aware of Scott's condition, but he would hopefully recover before it became an issue.

Hermione went upstairs, leaning heavily on the railing to take the weight off her wretched knees. When she reached the master bedroom, she expected to find Sophie keeping vigil over Scott's comatose form. That had been the case for the entire day, as Scott had not been ambulatory since the very early hours of the morning. Thus, Hermione was surprised to hear an argument emanating from the bedroom's closed doors.

“—her something!” Sophie was exclaiming. “She—”

“Is an AFA, and doesn't need to concern herself wi—”

“She is your _sister!”_ Sophie hissed over him. “I was very concerned, I am _still_ very concerned, I told her what was happening—”

“You didn't know what was happening. It's done. We can move on.”

“We can…?!” Sophie began to repeat incredulously. Hermione had never heard the other woman in such a volatile state. “You're weak as a kitten, just hours ago you were delirious!! I don't know why you think this is okay, but it is _not!”_

“I didn't say it was okay, I said it was done. Relax. Lila's busy right now.”

The silence that followed was heavy, and Hermione could only imagine the expression on Sophie's normally sweet face. She fidgeted a bit in the hall, knowing she shouldn't be listening in. Should she interrupt, or quietly leave? She didn't have much cause to intervene, save for the feeling that perhaps _someone_ should before one of them said something too harsh (most likely Scott). Her intrusion would not be welcome, to be sure, but it might be needed.

“What's going on?” a small voice said.

Hermione turned to see Kylie standing wide-eyed in the hall, looking at the closed doors with apprehension. Hermione opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, when the argument in the room started up again.

“Weren't you practising with Ron and Harry?” Hermione stalled, trying to talk a bit louder than usual. Scott and Sophie must have heard her, because they fell silent; though not before Scott finished a sentence with a loud expletive, making Hermione wince.

“I thought you were going to see Scott,” Kylie mumbled, beginning to back away.

“I was, but he's… discussing something with Sophie right now. Shall we come back later?” Hermione offered.

Kylie nodded her acceptance and Hermione followed the girl back downstairs, grateful that Kylie hadn't heard much, if anything. Hermione wasn't sure just how Kylie saw the rest of them: were Scott and Sophie the nominal adults whilst Hermione and the rest were the older kids, or were they all adults to her? Either way, Scott and Sophie were the closest things to authority figures that Kylie had at the moment.

Kylie was a victim of the ongoing turmoil, Hermione reflected, as so many were, but she was unique in the sense that she represented the capacity of the enemy to turn on themselves. Kylie was a pure-blood, through and through, her lineage utterly untainted by Voldemort's standards. Yet, still, she had been a sacrificial lamb, discarded due to her unassuming nature and ties to Gryffindor. It seemed it was not enough to merely favour ambition: a lack of it became cause for punishment. The slight girl might not be fully aware of it, but she had already demonstrated just how short-sighted such elitist attitudes were. The Death Eaters had delivered her to their greatest foe, and in so doing had given Harry exactly the information he had needed.

Hermione placed a supportive hand on Kylie's thin shoulder, steering the girl back towards the dining hall. She felt a responsibility for Kylie, not just because she was essentially a refugee in their care, but also an early-years Gryffindor. Hermione took her Prefect duties seriously, school or no school. Kylie could continue some manner of curriculum, even at Grimmauld Place.

Harry approached them when they entered. “Is he still out of it?” he asked Hermione.

“No, he was speaking with Sophie and I didn't want to interrupt them,” she told him, choosing not to detail what she heard, at least not so long as Kylie was present. “Ginny's downstairs writing to Bill, I don't know if she's finished yet. You might want to see if you have anything to add.”

“I reckon Gin has it covered,” Harry said, but he pocketed his wand and headed for the kitchen anyway.

“Scott's awake?” Ron said loudly from where he stood near the mattresses, gaining Hermione's attention.

“Yes, for the moment, at least,” she replied, walking over to him.

“Good. Me and Harry were going over that last dream, but we couldn't make sense of it. He thought we should all have a sit down and talk it over.”

“Scott may be awake, but I don't know anything else about his condition,” Hermione cautioned. “He may not be up for it quite yet.” Though that hadn't stopped him from arguing with Sophie…

Ron grimaced. “And Gin's still wobbly. She about fell down the stairs this morning; pretended her shoe slipped, like I was going to believe that.”

Hermione sighed impatiently. “She thinks Harry will start to coddle her again if she acts weak. She's so stubborn about it! Can't imagine where she gets that from…” She looked pointedly at Ron.

“Hey, this isn't that bad,” Ron said, smoothing the hair down on the back of his head. “I had worse at the end of first year. At least then it wasn't because I just fell over like a moron. And, hang on, who's that walking about on broken knees?”

“They aren't _broken_ ,” Hermione scoffed. “If they were, I should think I couldn't walk at all.”

“Lucky you, you don't have to,” Ron said cheerily. He bent down and scooped her up into his arms.

“Ron!” she squealed with surprise, digging her fingers into his shoulders as she momentarily feared he might drop her by accident.

“This is what boyfriends are for, yeah? What's the point of being so much bigger than you are if I don't pick you up now and then?” Ron said philosophically, carrying her towards the door. “Kylie, have a kip or a sandwich or whatever,” he called back over his shoulder. “Hermione's knees are taking a breather.”

“I hope your knees feel better,” Kylie said gravely as they turned the corner.

“We shouldn't just leave her alone,” Hermione fretted as Ron carried her up the stairs. She was impressed by how little strain he was showing, even going up the steps. As a result of their training, either she had lost weight or he had gained strength (she hoped it was both).

“She's fine. She's been doing loads better lately,” Ron said. “She reads by herself in the drawing room all the time.”

“I suppose so,” Hermione relented. It was true that Kylie no longer seemed quite so fragile as she had done.

Ron laid her down on the bed in their room. She wasn't about to admit it, but it _was_ a considerable relief to take the pressure off her knees, even though having them extended was still uncomfortable. The only position that seemed to minimise the pain was lying on her back, but she'd always had such difficulty sleeping on her back that it wasn't a very viable orientation for slumber. Fortunately, it wasn't time for bed, and her back worked just fine for reading.

“Ron, could you hand me that book with the blue binding? Right over there, on the top of that stack,” she said, reaching out a hand towards it.

“No,” Ron said immediately.

She dropped her hand and frowned at him, perplexed. “Why not?”

He flopped down onto the bed and rolled over until one warm arm was draped across her midsection. “Because you've got something else planned, haven't you,” he said, bringing his face close to hers.

She cast her eyes down coyly. “Oh, I see.”

***---~**~---***

Sophie retracted her head from the hall and quietly closed the door. She was likely about to make more than enough noise without slamming doors, she knew. The sudden voices from outside the room had given her an excuse to look away from Scott and gather herself. He was making her _so angry._ He was good at that, she'd always known it; Scott had a talent for getting under people's skin, a natural ability to gauge the approach, the words and mannerism, that would infuriate his target.

It was somehow even worse that, this time, Sophie was almost certain he wasn't doing it on purpose. His natural response just happened to be the most maddening. Didn't he care at all how scared she was?

If he did, he was hiding it very well.

“—without knowing more about how that thing worked it's hard to say exactly what happened, so I just think we shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions,” Scott was saying.

She ignored his rationalisations. “You're lying to me,” she said, rounding on him. “I can't believe you would lie to my face about something like this!”

“'About something like this'? You believe I'd lie about other things? Like what?”

“Anything! Whatever gets your way!” she said, her voice rising once more. “How long has this been happening?”

“You tell me, you're the accuser—”

“ _Stop it!_  You know that's not what I meant, you know exactly what I mean. How many times has this happened?”

Scott's arms were crossed, the muscles in his jaw tense. “…It's been a very long time,” he finally admitted with great reluctance.

Sophie leaned away from him, barely suppressing a gasp. She stared at him, a million questions besieging her at once. How could he not tell her? How could he not tell _Lil?_ Didn't he know how careless he was being? Wasn't he afraid? “H-How are you… You're so _reckless_ , I can't believe you! And you're an _integrationist…”_

He glared at her. “Okay, I've been doing this for awhile, if you noticed, and I'm not crazy yet.”

“You sure as heck were last night!” she retorted. “How did you get through testing, if this has happened before? Did you cheat somehow? Did you lie? Scott, you could go to jail!”

“You are completely fucking losing it! When have they ever jailed someone for lying to a recruiter? I took the tests, same as you, same as everyone, and I went through. How could I go through if I'm that unstable? Huh?” he demanded angrily.

“I don't know,” she said a bit feebly, having no real clue as to how someone could cheat the system. “But… But if you weren't this bad to start with,” she said more strongly, “then you know you need to stop!”

“And do what?” he spat. “Take a discharge and skip out to the periphery? Who do you think will pay more, Crimsecki or Norwich?”

Sophie flinched. “You wouldn't do that, Scott. You're not a mercenary.”

Scott turned away. “No. I'm an integrationist. So let it go.”

Nope. She stepped closer to him, raising her chin defiantly. “How about I go give Armond a piece of my mind for letting you qualify?”

Scott sighed, shoulders slumping. He had evidently hoped his previous statement would be the end of the argument. “Don't be mad at him, he had the okay.”

“He risked your health!”

“He gave me what I wanted!” Scott snapped. “Am I really going to retire, do you think that's a reasonable option? Just bail on my career, lose the house?”

“I'll pay for the house! I can get you a job with the company—”

“That's your solution,” Scott chuckled incredulously. “Quit my job and become a charity case. Well thank fuck Sophie has all the money, I'll just sign everything over to you!”

“It could be a loan,” she countered.

He eyed her for a moment and then grimaced, shaking his head. “Look, keep Armond on the Christmas list,” he said more calmly. “People with the sensitivity the Primarius needs are rare and sometimes the rules get bent, we all know that. If they cut everybody who was a little too sensitive, we'd lose half the FA.”

“You are more than a _little,”_ she said pointedly.

“Just tell me honestly, for real honest: this is the third episode I've had since I hit puberty. Does that sound like an imminent symptom? Really?”

“…No,” she said reluctantly, as he had invoked honesty. “But it's not going to get any better!”

“And it might not get worse,” he said easily.

“You're only optimistic when it gets you what you want,” she muttered, still upset with him.

“Sophie, come on,” Scott said, lowering his voice an octave and stepping closer to her. He reached for her hands.

Oh, no, he was _not_ going to use her attraction against her. If he thought he could be all handsome and tall and muscle-y and make her forget, then he had another thing coming. “No!” she said sharply, slapping him on the wrist as if he were a disobedient child. He glanced down at his wrist with a slight frown. “You need to talk to Lila about this or I will.”

“It's not really any of your business,” he said stiffly.

Her mouth dropped open as hurt lanced through her. How _dare_ he?!

Perhaps sensing he had crossed a line, Scott quickly changed his approach. “I mean, it _is_ your business, but she's my sister and it's something I need to think about before I make any decisions.”

That wasn't good enough of a retraction for Sophie. “You already had your chance to make a decision and you made the wrong one. Now you had better make the right one, or I'm making it for you.”

Scott drew himself up to his full height, looming over her threateningly. “I don't think you should be throwing any ultimatums around, Lieutenant.”

Pulling rank proclaimed desperation, a last resort, and they both knew it. Unfortunately for Scott, it also wasn't going to work outside of a firefight. Sophie had had enough. “I'm calling Lila, and you can go sit in syrup!”

“Will you just hold the fuck up for a _single_ damn second?! Why are you so set on calling her right this minute?” Scott demanded.

“Because it's pretty clear that you won't, Scott! You think you can just brush this under the rug and you don't even care how worried she is! You don't even _care!”_

“That's not fair, I didn't say that!”

“You don't have to say it. You just have to keep it a secret when the thing she's so afraid of starts happening!”

“Maybe that's why I should keep it a secret.”

Sophie didn't believe that would have even occurred to him. “That is not how you think. Neither of you do. You're trying to protect your own butt, not make things easier for her,” she accused.

Scott shook his head, running a hand through his hair in an aggravated motion. “Seriously, what is this? My daily dose of character assassination?”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and thrust it towards him. “Prove me wrong! I'd love to be wrong!”

“Nobody loves to be wrong,” he stalled.

“I would. Being wrong would make me happy. You should want to make me happy,” she asserted.

“I could make you happy in other, less emotionally uncomfortable ways,” he suggested with half-hearted innuendo.

Her arm did not waver or withdraw, nor did she dignify his comment with a response.

Scott looked down at the phone as if it were a rope from which he would be hung. “…What if you did call her?” he said finally. “Like you said you would, you know, instead of me. Let's face it: you're gonna be a lot more reassuring than I would. If I tell her there's nothing to worry about, she'll assume I'm lying.”

“I wonder why she would think that,” Sophie said acridly.

“Hey, you were right. You should call her, let her know I'm fine.”

“Oh, that's okay. You're just about to do it,” she said firmly.

Scott's face took on a stubborn cast. He squinted at the phone, unmoving.

“What, what's next? Now what? You did— you tried to reason with me, you tried to scare me, you tried to distract me and then you tried to flatter me. You just pull out your whole bag of tricks for stupid little Sophie,” she said in a wounded tone.

He rubbed at his eyes. “Jesus, Sophie—”

“And now you're swearing at me!”

“God,” he huffed in exasperation. “Do you know what you're…” He struggled with the words. “I know… that Lil was kind of worried about the whole OCog thing; I remember after a shaperate class she was asking all these questions, gauging my personality symptoms. But I thought that was old news, I didn't know she was still… you know, talking to you about it. Concerned.”

“Very much so,” Sophie told him.

Scott grimaced. “Great. You gotta understand, I don't talk about the fits, I don't think about the fits, I barely have the fits. Third one, remember? Third major one.”

“Third _major_ one?” Sophie said with consternation.

He waved her off. “Yeah, yeah. _Technically_ , that's sort of a concern, and _technically,_ someone looked the other way, but if they're willing to do that and I'm willing to not talk about it, then why bring it up?”

Sophie immediately bristled. “Because it _just happened—”_

“Yes, yes it did,” he said quickly, “that's why it came up, fine. But now we need to think about our situation and how this isn't the time to start a big fight with Lil just because I didn't tell her something she thinks is important. We're in the middle of stuff a lot more pressing than whatever mental illness I may or may not have a predisposition for—”

Sophie did not raise her voice often. She didn't like yelling at people, she didn't have a penchant for confrontation. But Scott was sorely testing the limits of her considerable patience. “She does not _think_ this is important, _this_ _is important,_ and you will call her and tell her what happened _**right now.** ”_

Scott reached out and snatched the phone from her hand with a hard motion. “I really don't want to deal with this,” he said through clenched teeth as he dialled Lila.

Sophie said nothing, observing him as the phone rang. Letting him contact Lila on his own schedule would have been fine, usually. He could make his own decisions. But if he'd never talked to his sister about being shape sick before, then odds were he wouldn't have after his latest episode, either. Maybe his last one had happened before he and Lila had been reunited, Sophie didn't know, but letting Scott ignore what had happened to him wasn't what was best for anyone involved. Sophie trusted Scott to make the right decisions for the mission, for any fight. But she had learned through long experience that he could not be trusted when it came to his own health.

“It's me,” Scott said abruptly. His voice was calm enough, but the way his free hand kept fiddling with his hair betrayed his agitation. “Just calling to let you know that I'm better. …Better, not well. Soon.” He paused. “…I don't know, exactly. Something to do with the Horcrux and moving the whole crew through what my head thought was the shape. Maybe it was. Without duplicating the circumstances it's impossible… No. I talked to Sophie, she's right here. It's been awhile, anyway, only the third one, bad one. I really doubt this exact situation is going to come up again.” He said the two sentences casually, offhand, with the speed of someone hoping the other party wouldn't pay full attention.

The stretch of ominous silence from the phone was indication enough of how well that had worked.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut. “Talk about what?” he said, playing dumb. “I know we need to talk. How has… I'm not changing the subject, this is mission talk. Do you remember where we are, what we're doing? What do you mean, _'do I'?_ I just took out a Horcrux. No, I'm not — I'm not doing this over the phone. I don't know what your deal is. …Well, even if I do, I'm still not doing this right now! Yeah, gladly!”

Without warning, Scott tossed the phone towards Sophie. She caught it with a swift hand and brought it up to her ear. “Lil?” she said apprehensively.

Lila's tone was brusque, even for her. “How is he?”

Sophie turned away from Scott and lowered her voice. “Probably about to pass out. He's been standing here arguing with me and then with you and I don't think he should be on his feet at all.”

“Why would that even slightly surprise me? Why am I so fucking angry when it's all completely expected?” Lila mused rhetorically. “He's right about this having to wait. That's the only thing he's right about. Make him go back to bed.”

Sophie knew that the circumstances weren't ideal for Scott and Lila to have any sort of heart to heart, but she also knew that putting the issue aside would allow it to fester. The two of them were like that, allowing their emotions to stay suppressed, building until the moment of confrontation came and made them both savage beyond proportion. For two such regularly combative siblings, they weren't very good at fighting without becoming vicious.

“Okay, but the two of you should hash this out sooner, instead of later. I know he's being obnoxious, but I think he didn't want you to ever worry—”

“I can't listen to this right now,” Lila said abruptly. “Not even from you. I'm going before I say something I'll regret.”

Sophie held her tongue, waiting for the click of disconnection. When it came, she put her phone sombrely back into her pocket and waited for Scott to stop glaring at the wall, his shoulders tight with anger.

“Was this really the best way to go about it?” he finally muttered, not looking at her.

Sophie narrowed her eyes at him. “There would be better options if you hadn't lied to her before!”

“I didn't _lie_ to anyone, I just didn't talk about it, okay? Omission is not falsehood. I have the right to a little privacy.”

“Well… Lil isn't going to see it that way.”

Scott sighed, head drooping. “And you don't, either, obviously.”

Sophie had more to say on the subject, but it could wait. She could see Scott beginning to fade: his entire body shook with slight tremors and all the colour had left his face. “You need to lie back down.”

His jaw set stubbornly for about a second, but he must have decided that he'd been obstinate enough for one day. “…This floor is pretty cold, I will admit,” he said, beginning to shuffle back towards the bed.

Aghast, Sophie glanced down at his feet. “Scott! You didn't put on any socks!”

“Yes, how stupid of me, I should be wearing _socks._ That would have solved _everything,”_ he grumbled.

“You're sick enough without adding cold to it.”

“You know that cold doesn't actually make you sick, right?” he said with a superior expression, halting by the edge of the bed. “Has this locale regressed your intellect to the point you're pushing old wives' tales?”

“You know that hypothermia is a thing, right? And that cold temperatures affect your respiratory defences and make some strains more resilient?” she shot back. “And I didn't say it would _make_ you sick, I said you don't need to be cold on top of being sick, but if you want to feel even worse and have feet like ice blocks then you can go ahead and keep standing there and see if I give a hoot!” she finished with her voice wavering. She wanted to help him and hated to leave, but she wasn't going to stay and allow herself to be a punching bag surrogate for Lila. She turned to exit, ducking her head and letting her hair fall over her face to hide her expression.

Behind her, she heard Scott groan and the mattress squeak as he fell onto it. “I'm an asshole!” he called after her. “I'm a raging cock and I should have told you everything before, but I'm an asshole and I'm scared.”

She stopped near the door, but didn't turn around. “If you're scared then you should have talked to me. That's what best friends do. You can tuck yourself in, and I'll be back later.”

“Sophie—”

She quickly stepped out into the hall before he found the words that would change her mind; if there were any, he'd discover them one way or another. She couldn't trust herself when it came to him, sometimes.

“Now you've fuckin' done it,” she heard Scott murmur to himself just before the door clicked shut.

***---~**~---*** 

Harry stood outside of the bedroom door, not entirely sure he wanted to go in. Well, he _did,_ if just for a moment, but he also didn't want to get on Sophie's bad side by disturbing Scott's rest.

He knew that Scott and Sophie had some sort of argument earlier, as related by Hermione, who hadn't spoken of the incident in much detail. Harry couldn't recall ever wishing that she had more of a predilection for gossip before, and he supposed he really didn't care that much about what the argument concerned. Harry just wanted to know what had happened to Scott, and if he was going to recover soon. They had things to do.

Maybe that was callous. He'd probably think so, too, if it were anyone but Scott. But it was a line of thought Scott would understand. No doubt he was more frustrated with his condition than any of the rest of them.

Harry's intention was just to peek in, see if Scott was sleeping, and then find something to occupy his time. But when he opened the door and peered inside, he saw Scott sitting against the headboard and staring wanly at nothing in particular. Until he spotted Harry, and their eyes locked.

“Are you alone?” Scott asked. His voice was normal enough despite his haggard, pale appearance, and, although he didn't sound urgent, it also didn't seem like a very casual question.

“Yeah, I just wanted to see if you were feeling better,” Harry told him.

“That's debatable, but I can talk. Come on in.”

Harry entered the room and shut the door behind him. He paused. “Did you want me to leave this—”

“Keep it closed.”

Harry walked over to the bed and sat in the chair conveniently next to it, perhaps Sophie's former perch. “That's a bit ominous. Should I be worried?”

Scott laughed, the lines of his face creasing in tired humour. “I don't know. Would that help?”

Harry frowned. “Help with what?”

Scott sighed through his nose, staring at Harry for a long, silent moment. “Let's knock this out of the way, first. I don't know exactly what happened to me, but it has to do with touching the shape with too much precision for too long. I'll recover, but it's going to take longer than usual.”

“We were dreaming, though. I thought it wasn't the real shape.”

“It seems like the whole thing might have been the real shape, or something close to it. Whatever I was doing, whether I knew it or not, I was immersed. And there are limits to that kind of thing. More for me, than some.”

Harry didn't really understand, but that wasn't unusual when it came to the shape. He asked the most pertinent question. “Will this happen again?”

“Very unlikely,” Scott assured him. “Not impossible, but improbable to the point that we shouldn't worry about it.”

“I'll take any chance to not worry about something, mate.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of how things have been.”

Harry flexed his fingers, absently rubbing the strip of his palm he had lacerated in Scott's dream. It was probably his imagination, but he thought it still sort of hurt. “Gin sent a letter off to Bill. We should be able to meet with him before too long.”

Scott closed his eyes and put his head back on his pillow. “That's not gonna restart the whole shit with her going back to her family, is it?” he said.

“She doesn't think Bill will care about that. I mean… I'm sure he _cares_ , but…”

“I just don't want to deal with it. Or make Lil have to deal with it, I guess.”

Harry shrugged slightly. “I don't think it matters now. She's here.”

Scott opened one eye partially. “What about you?”

“I've never stopped wanting her to be safe. But, it's been good to have her here. And maybe I need her here,” Harry finished more quietly.

The eye closed again. “You don't want to see what would happen if you try and make her leave after all this.”

Harry grimaced at the floor. “That is true.”

“Kind of a no-win, though, since even if she was safe at the cottage or whatever, you'd have broken her heart to get her there. Make it hard to work with the Weasleys all over again. Hell, make it hard to work with Hermione and Ron.”

“I'm sure even you'd be there to tell me you'd kill me if I hurt her again,” Harry said dryly.

Scott scoffed at that. “Please. That's some romantic dramedy crap. Heroine gets romantically devastated, everyone important in her life lines up to threaten death to the object of her affection. I don't murder people over interpersonal mishaps.”

“I didn't mean literally. Like, the expression.”

“It's important to keep distinctions clear. When I tell someone I'm going to kill them, there's reason to take it seriously.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“Granted, I don't usually _tell_ people I'm going to kill them. Though, you know, in the case of a war it's probably just assumed.”

“It's not really a war if it's just you showing up by surprise,” Harry said.

Scott held up a finger. “Riddle doesn't embody or represent a legitimate government, so we aren't required to declare war. Presumably, by now he's gotten the idea anyway.”

Harry considered that. “So, once he makes himself Minister, your government will have to tell him that you're here and declare war?”

An odd expression flitted across Scott's face. “Well… No. There's a bit of a loophole.”

Harry frowned at him. “Why are you making it sound like it's something you don't want to tell me?”

“Maybe not you, so much, but definitely Hermione. It kind of plays into the whole 'superior future alien' thing I do sometimes that drives her crazy.”

“I thought you were just taking the piss, mostly.”

“I was, mostly, but the Republic isn't. See, a legitimate government has to be recognised by the Republic and given certain rights and assurances under our own laws. Let's say, for example, our illustrious neighbours, the VC. I can't go to the Commonwealth and do what I do here because that would be assassination and espionage. It happens anyway, but it's illegal. But the Ministry for Magic is not a valid governmental body — nor is any other government in the world. As far as the Republic is concerned, there are no laws on this planet that apply to me.”

“None? You could do _anything?”_ Harry said, aghast.

“The Republic's laws still apply to me, Harry, and there's a lot of overlap,” Scott said evenly.

“Why aren't the Muggle governments legitimate? Why wouldn't they at least recognise Parliament, even if the Ministry is too small, or whatever?”

“It's not size. Under Republic law, no government can be considered legitimate which does not have access to the shape.”

Harry thought about that for a moment, and discovered it made him a bit angry. “Are you serious? You said only Kharadjai can see the shape!”

“Right.”

“So the only real governments for you are other Kharadjai governments!”

“…Right.”

“That's effing bollocks, Scott.”

“I know. The idea is that the shape is a fundamental part of the multiverse and a people who can't touch it—”

“Aren't real people?” Harry interrupted.

Scott sighed. “You're not taking this very well.”

“Imagine what Hermione would be saying.”

“Oh, I have. The law was written when things were different, it's actually a holdover from the Imperium. It's not a kind of thinking that's really in fashion anymore, attitudes have changed in most places, but the law hasn't. I guess it's too useful.”

“I guess,” Harry muttered.

“Hey, better they keep that than the old rules for fraternization. Then I couldn't hit on Sophie all the time.”

“Yeah, what a shame that would be. We'd all miss it so much,” Harry said dryly. “You know, I think they actually don't allow that in the Aurors. Not really sure.”

“They didn't under the Imperium. Now it just depends on where you are, so to speak. Most of the lower postings forbid relationships in the ranks. Once you get into a real unit, things are looser. Spec ops especially tend to not care, so long as your performance is unaffected. It's all statistics, really. You can sleep with your co-workers when it's forbidden, get caught and shuffled out, or you can sleep with your co-workers when it's allowed, things get messy and people get shuffled out — they found that the second thing happens less than the first. When the fruit isn't forbidden, it's not quite so sweet.”

“What about you, are you allowed?” Harry asked. “I know you just said about Sophie, but flirting isn't doing, you know.”

Scott chuckled dismissively, as if Harry were an adorable rube for asking such a stupid question. “I'm Primarius, Harry. I could bone an admiral if I wanted.”

“There a lot of admirals you fancy?”

“Nah.” Scott wiggled a bit, rocking his shoulders into the mattress. “What are we even talking about, man?” he sighed.

Harry leaned his head back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “I dunno. I reckoned you'd fall asleep soon, you've had your eyes closed the whole time.”

“It was easier to ramble,” Scott murmured. “I need to tell you something. Or, I think I _should_ tell you something, I don't know how much you need it. I know how much you would think you do.”

Scott wasn't being very clear. Harry raised his head, wishing Scott would open his eyes so Harry could actually meet them. “About your dream?” he guessed. “Or the last one? I was talking to Ron about it and it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit any of us.”

“I have an answer. It's not one you're going to like.”

“When do I ever?” Harry said rhetorically. “That's fucking bog standard for my entire life. When did you suss this out if you were arguing with Sophie about something?”

“Dumbledore gave me an explanation; the dream is just a different context for it,” Scott said vaguely.

“Out with it,” Harry said impatiently.

Scott finally opened his eyes, and they conveyed an internal struggle for the right words. “…Riddle's state is more unstable than we've understood,” he eventually said. “He created a Horcrux unintentionally.”

Immediately, Harry's heart sunk. “God, there's another one we didn't know about?”

“We sort of knew about it. Or, rather, we know its vessel.”

A sliver of hope returned. “So we can get it, then. It's not in Gringotts or anything.”

“It's more complicated than that.”

“You're not making it any simpler,” Harry said pointedly.

Scott placed his palms over his face and scrubbed hard at it, as if he were clearing thoughts away. “I already had my hard conversation for the day, I just want to _sleep.”_

“You prat, you can't just leave it at—”

“Look, I'm just going to say it,” Scott said, voice muffled by his hands. “You're a Horcux.”

Harry paused. “What?”

“You. You are the Horcrux. It's in you.”

Harry was about halfway to grinning when he realised Scott's tone had been nothing but serious. “…Are you joking? I don't get it, what do you—”

“I'm not super clear on the details, but it happened when he tried to kill you. The first time he tried to kill you. Apparently his soul or whatever is fractured to the point he's started to shed.” Scott paused for a moment. “Now, I know this is—”

Scott continued to speak, but the words fell behind the distant roaring Harry's ears. He was detached enough to recognise the feeling even as it came over him, a kind of horror that seemed to seep out of his bones as a numbing tar. His limbs felt fuzzy, too heavy to move, his fingers cramping down into fists that didn't seem to be his own. His heart thudded in his chest as the numbness took over his skin, flushed and prickling, and his throat went tight under the phantom noose. It was an almost unbearable sensation, disembodiment through disbelief, through insurmountable despair. The kind of quiet seizure that came from a realisation that could not be faced, but _had_ to be.

And inside — behind that jarring heartbeat, beneath the excoriated skin — was a poison, a deep-rooted infection of a foreign, dark-tempered soul. He imagined he could _feel_ that piece of Voldemort, pressed against his spine, wrapping its long, white fingers around his ribs. There was nothing sharp enough to dig it out.

Harry had always known he was a danger to those around him. But he had never understood just how utterly correct he was. The logical end was clear enough: he was a Horcrux (the idea was insane, bewildering, impossible to rationalise), and Horcruxes had to be destroyed.

He looked down at Scott's bedding where, somewhere, he knew — under a pillow, beneath a blanket, tucked between the mattress and headboard — was concealed a little over three pounds of machined steel. “Shoot me,” he rasped.

Scott didn't even say anything. He silently gazed at Harry with such absolute condescension that Harry had to look away, embarrassment managing to poke its way through his tangle of indecipherable reactions.

“If you're done sobbing on your shirt sleeve, I'll continue,” Scott finally said with an ironic twist to his lips. Then he frowned. “Harry, you're not breathing.”

Harry somehow managed to suck in a breath, forcing it through the intolerable tightness in his chest. “I guess that was sort of dramatic,” he managed to say.

“You think? Also, shooting you would send the soul back to Riddle. So maybe you should keep holding on to it for awhile.”

Harry liked that phrasing, the idea that the piece of soul was just an item, a box or a bag, something he had that he could return or bin. “I wish. I wish it were like that,” he said, still trying to regulate his breathing. “How could… I never knew, I never even _thought —_ I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't— I guess I have to die, which I sort of knew, but maybe not for sure or it wasn't— I just didn't think about it much. Oh, _fuck.”_ He clenched his jaw and leaned forward, fighting through more emotions than he could handle. He thought he might explode with them, paint the walls with his tainted essence. “I want you to do it. I guess I could, but just to be safe. I can't ask… Nobody else could, you know them, there's no way. I can't ask them.”

“But you can ask me?” Scott said loudly, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

“Who else?” Harry demanded. “You're always telling me that you do whatever you have to, now's your chance to prove it!”

Without warning, Scott's arm snaked out from underneath his blankets and wrapped around Harry's throat. Harry was too surprised to even resist when Scott pulled him off the chair and forced his head onto the mattress. Harry had just begun to struggle when Scott brought his other hand down with a pillow, smashing it against Harry's face.

Harry tried to suck in a breath, but he couldn't; the cotton pillowcase pressed against his mouth and nose, blocking his airflow. He fought against Scott's iron grip at first without result, feet kicking helpless against the floor, fingers scrabbling at the unyielding arm which pinned him. His lungs began to burn. He felt faint, becoming more desperate by the second. But Scott was too weakened to strain himself for long, and soon Harry overpowered the Kharadjai and pushed the pillow away, falling gasping to the floor, trying to cough and fill his lungs at the same time as the room seemed to spin around him.

“How was that? Was it what you expected, what you wanted? You didn't look like you were welcoming the comforting embrace of death. All the flailing was kind of undignified, not very resigned,” Scott said with an edge in his voice whilst Harry fought for breath.

 ** _“Are you fucking mental?!”_** Harry wheezed.

“Are you? Because it seems like you were asking me to kill you, maybe I misunderstood.”

“ _Painlessly_ , you _shitting_ **wanker!”** Harry leaned back against the chair, glaring at Scott. “God!” He coughed a little, and took another deep breath.

“Get a grip, man. We have options,” Scott said firmly, settling back down on the bed.

Almost despite himself, Harry couldn't help but listen. “Like what?” he managed to say with something approaching an even tone. Having the wind knocked right out of him had calmed his state somewhat, if only because he didn't have enough oxygen to be tense.

“Dumbledore gave Hermione some books on blood magic, or whatever it’s called.”

Harry didn't make the connection, but he was also having a bit of trouble thinking clearly. “So?”

“So Riddle can't kill you. Not directly with magic, anyway. Apparently, when he took your blood some kind of protection was shared, or duplicated — or something, I don't fuckin' know, but the point is that if he hit you with a curse, it wouldn't kill anything but the Horcrux. If we can do the same blood whatever, then that would be true for us, too. Problem solved.”

Harry remembered the graveyard and the cauldron. Not the most pleasant experience he had ever undergone, but if repeating it meant his friends would be Riddle-proofed, he'd do it in an instant. “And if that doesn't work?”

“Then we figure something else out. Or contrive a situation in which Riddle kills you, fails, and kills the Horcrux.” Scott paused. “Possible, but that would take some doing. Let's try other things, first.”

“Fine.” Harry squeezed his eyes shut, tried to _think_. “Um… Since it's not safe for me to stay here, we'll have to find somewhere to… Isolate me.”

Scott sighed. “Shut up, you dork.”

 _“Don't tell me to shut up!”_ Harry snapped, launching himself to his feet and glaring down at Scott. “You can pretend like this isn't fucking horrible, but that doesn't make it true! I'm a bloody _Horcrux_ , Scott, you can't have me around!”

It was the thought which seemed the worst: how much of Harry had ever been him? How many awful things had he said and done which had sprung not from his mind, but from a rotten seed burrowed deep in his viscera? He didn't know, and he probably _couldn't_ know, and that would always haunt him.

“Really? Because you've been around so far, and I can only remember the Horcrux causing trouble a couple times. No, just that one time. Oh, wait — _not at all.”_ Scott had settled back down onto the bed, eyes closed again as if Harry's horror and frustration weren't even worth making eye contact for. “However Horcruxes in living things work, they clearly don't work the same way as they do in objects. Or maybe Riddle just never got to do to yours what he did to the other ones. Who knows? Who cares?”

“I care!” Harry said incredulously, about ready to rip the sheets off Scott and pummel the Kharadjai until he treated the situation with the gravity it deserved.

“Yeah, clearly. I took out the thread that linked you to Riddle; that was your Horcrux effect. It's already been taken care of, we just didn't know it,” Scott said sleepily. “It's not good news, etcetera, but this works for us. Better we found out now than after we smoke him.”

Harry didn't think Scott appreciated just what this information was doing to him. “So we should just take that chance? There's a _Horcrux in me.”_

“Yeah, I know. I just told you that. Like, a minute ago.”

Harry stared down at Scott's tired face for a long, trembling moment, rage and fear and utter despair ricocheting through him in a torrent he could barely suppress. “Why don't you care?” he said finally, his voice hoarse.

Scott's eyes opened and met his. “I do care. That's why I put some thought into this. You need to believe that this is something we can manage. We've handled plenty of Horcruxes. And yours isn't even an immediate danger. And Riddle doesn't even know about it! I know you can't help but consider this a personal setback, but from a mission standpoint, we came out ahead.”

“Except you might have to lose your precious Priority One to get this Horcrux finished,” Harry said bitterly. “And that's the end right there, isn't it.”

“I don't believe that.”

Harry slumped back down into the chair. _“Why?”_ he nearly pleaded.

“Because if there was no way to get the Horcrux out, Dumbledore would have already killed you.”

Harry had no response.

Scott continued, “The evidence says Dumbledore knows what he's doing when it comes to magic. If there wasn't any chance of this blood magic thing working, I don't think he would have shown us the opportunity.”

Harry stared at the floor, feeling sick. “He knew. This whole time. He'd always known.”

“Maybe not always. I do wonder what his original plan was, though. Obviously, now he's using me, but I only showed up last year.”

Harry laughed, though there was no humour in it. “At least you just told me right away. Thanks for that, I guess. I don't know if anyone else would have.”

“That's me: I only tell you the things you don't want to hear,” Scott mumbled through a half-smile. “Clearly, the best integration strategy.”

Harry took a shuddering breath. “I don't know if I can handle this, mate,” he said honestly.

“You can. Like I said, this could end up being an advantage.”

Scott said it so easily, and Harry wanted so badly to believe in that version of events. “Unless we can't get it out,” he reiterated.

“Until that happens, this is just new information. It's actionable intel on a problem we need to control.”

Harry wasn't sure how much Scott even believed what he was saying. “I suppose.”

“Believe it,” Scott yawned.

Scott's face had become increasingly slack over the course of their conversation. Reluctantly, Harry stood back up. “I should let you sleep.”

“If you don't talk to the others about this, _you_ won't be sleeping,” Scott murmured.

He was right about that, and Harry dreaded the talks that he knew were coming.


	30. Every Word Now Shall Be a Much Needed Recompense in Our Memory

**30**

**Every Word Now Shall Be a Much Needed Recompense in Our Memory**  

\---

 _“We spoke of the trials, as  
the birds sang of the sea  
astride light from horizons  
which lit upon thee  
 Once last sighs gutter silent  
every word now shall be  
a much needed recompense  
in our memory”  
  
_ —Susanna B. Aether, _Another City, Another Sea:_  
The Unfinished Works of Susanna B. Aether  
  
\---

Harry procrastinated until late the next evening after his discussion with Scott. He knew that he needed to speak with his friends, but he avoided them during the day, trying to find the proper words before he had to use them. Perhaps he wasn't doing himself any favours. Still, it was the sort of thing he had to work himself up to.

He spoke to Ron first, as he reckoned that would be the easiest way to start.

The awkward silence that descended once Harry finished explaining wasn't quite as painful as he had anticipated, for which he was grateful.

“That's shite,” Ron said finally. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Blood magic, maybe. We talked about it for a bit, and it seems like we have some options,” Harry said, not entirely sure he actually believed that.

Ron nodded. “Good. And it explains the last dream, doesn't it? The Horcrux is in you, but… Not really _you,_ if that makes sense. Not like the other ones.”

“Or maybe I've never been who I thought I was,” Harry said grimly.

“Bollocks,” Ron scoffed. “If your Horcrux was like that, it would've had something to say about first year, or every bloody year. You-Know-Who doesn't hate himself _that_ much, mate.”

A very good point. “Still, if you want to keep your distance I'll under—”

“Shut it, you twat,” Ron interrupted, rolling his eyes. “I've been sleeping in the same room as you for six years, you've not tried to smother me yet. You came close with those farts you had third year.”

“You can't say a damn thing, and you know it,” Harry told him.

“Yeah. Seamus was the worst, though. Cabbage and arse.”

Hermione came next. Harry didn't expect it to go as smoothly as it had with Ron, but hopefully she would be more focussed on fixing the problem than making a fuss.

When he’d finished his halting explanation, one hand had shot upwards to hover near her trembling mouth. “Harry…” she began.

“Don't,” he said, more harshly than he had intended. He grimaced and softened his voice. “Just, please don't. I know it's awful. You should talk to Scott, he's had some ideas.”

“I'm not going to cry, Harry,” she told him in a wavering tone that directly contradicted her words, “I just want you to know that you aren't alone, we can fix this!” Her arms shot out and gripped him in a hug that was nearly painful in its intensity.

He awkwardly patted her back. “I know, Hermione.”

“I hope you do,” she said wetly, sniffing loudly. “And don't you dare tell me to keep my distance. Nothing's changed.”

That was true, really, and part of what made the revelation so hard. “You said you weren't going to cry,” he reminded her.

She pulled away and crossed her arms, blinking back tears. “You're awful,” she said with a watery-eyed laugh.

Ginny came last. He didn't know how he was going to tell her that her boyfriend was another diary. Badly, most likely.

In the end, he managed to speak it more clearly and with fewer pauses than he'd expected. Practising on Ron and Hermione first had been the wisest course of action. Whatever relief he gained from expressing himself tactfully was immediately overshadowed by the way Ginny became so pale that her freckles were like a dark constellation against her bloodless face. He wanted to reach out to her, but was afraid to. Maybe she wouldn't want to be close to him, anymore.

Her breathing was quick, and shallow. “Do you have to die?” she said, and he was chilled by the way there was so much fear in such a small voice.

“Scott didn't think so,” Harry told her quickly. “Hermione didn't, either. There were some ideas that sounded… you know, plausible. I think that's the word.”

The relief that crossed her features was so great that for a moment he thought she might faint from the way she slumped forward. He crossed the space between them and caught her shoulders, and she collapsed into his arms.

“Don't scare me like that,” she said weakly into his chest.

“Sorry. I was getting to the part where there were options,” he apologised, rubbing a hand across the tense muscles of her back.

“Should have got to that part _first,”_ she muttered, hugging him tightly.

“I was worried about how it might affect me. I still sort of am, but Ron said we would have noticed something by now. Since it's not exactly new, I just…” He stopped, not sure what to say about it. Despite having explained it three times to as many people, he still didn't really know how to confront the concept.

“It's not you,” Ginny said firmly. She turned her head so that her nose was against his collarbone, breath warm through his shirt. “Do you really think this thing you've got would have saved me in the Chamber? The diary didn't even know, didn't say a word.”

“I suppose it did try pretty hard to kill me,” he allowed.

She looked up at him through long, red eyelashes. “You thought I was going to stay away, didn't you.”

He shrugged within her grip. “I dunno.”

Her eyes narrowed, disbelieving. “Yeah, right.”

“…It crossed my mind,” he admitted.

“I'm not going anywhere. I've worked much too hard to get here in the first place,” she said, clearly only half-joking.

“I know.”

“No, you didn't!” she scoffed. “You thought I was going to run screaming for the door!”

“Can't we just pretend I knew you were braver than that?” he said plaintively.

“Only if you've learnt your lesson.”

“I've learnt my lesson,” he repeated in a monotone.

She giggled, dropping her forehead back against his shoulder. “Smart arse.”

Later, as Harry went upstairs to have a shower before bed, he was amazed by how much lighter he felt. Perhaps a burden shared really was a burden eased. He had never been especially good at sharing his problems before, he knew. His first instinct was to internalise and try to deal with it himself. And it was true that Ron and Hermione had often taken it upon themselves to help him, whether he preferred it or not, but the relief which their friendship brought had always struck him as being somewhat selfish. He could only imagine how much easier their lives would have been had they never become a part of his.

That last thought was a classic one, old and well-worn. But he was slightly different than he'd used to be — lessons of logic that had been taught to him, repeated, reinforced by contact with the enemy. The guilt may have been familiar, but less so was the small yet insistent voice in the back of his mind which pointed out how, if he'd never befriended Ron and Hermione, he would be dead, and they would be doomed.

Never a responsibility he'd wanted, but one he had to accept.

He paused in front of the mirror whilst drying his hair, leaning in for a closer look. The bruise near his eye was still a dark colour, barely beginning to heal. Considering he had been one of the luckier ones, it was going to take a bit for everyone to get back into fighting shape. Hermione still walked stiffly, Ron had a near-constant headache, and Ginny had the same problem plus a general lack of equilibrium. And that wasn't even getting into whatever Scott's difficulty was.

Harry hated delays in general, mostly because he found waiting to be the worst part of the whole ordeal. When his life was actually on the line, he was too busy trying to preserve it to really think about things. Recklessness wasn't a very safe approach, but it was definitely his comfort zone. He'd only recently begun to thoroughly plan his actions. It did seem to get results, even if he was sometimes impatient with the process.

When he left the loo, he ended up standing outside the door for a solid five minutes. He wasn't sure what to do next, as he wasn't ready to sleep and there didn't seem to be anything else to do. He didn't _want_ to do anything, really. After three difficult confessions in a row, he felt drained. Lighter, but still worn out.

He could hear voices conversing somewhere among the bedrooms. Idly, he followed the sound until he found the source: Hermione and Scott were talking in the master bedroom. Harry paused by the partially opened door, debating whether to go in or not. He didn't really want to talk to anyone, not yet.

“—should be useful,” Hermione was saying. “But I'd still like to hear anything else that's occurred to you, impractical or not.”

“Manual resuscitation is a possibility, though I'd prefer to keep that a last resort. A more controlled form would be better: with the right equipment we can stop his heart, or induce coma, if that counts. Depriving the brain of oxygen is dangerous, but… I mean, how dead does he have to be? What part of him is the Horcrux tied to, what even counts as deceased? If asystole isn't sufficient, if it's the brain, then that's a problem. Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest could be maintainable with magic, if risky. Better to have the right gear. If we're up against some kind of time we have to meet, something longer than a few minutes, we'd need…” Scott paused. “Uh, stuff we can't get here in '97. Stuff I'm not sure I could get for us. The problem is we have no idea what requirements we're trying to meet. 'Dead' means a lot of different shit, really. I have to know who's defining it.”

Harry probably should have been horrified or at least a bit upset that they were discussing how to safely kill him, but he mostly felt curious.

“I don't think there is any way to know short of making the attempt,” Hermione replied, “so I'd rather we apply magic to a magical problem.”

“I don't think Harry would appreciate it if we applied the sword to him.”

“Fortunately, we don't have to, thanks to the Headmaster. I've done some cursory reading; not much, but enough to believe we have a chance at working with the blood protections.”

“Too bad they won't work against anyone but Riddle. We haven't even seen him, yet, just the goon squad.”

“He's been taking less of a personal hand in his affairs than he used to,” Hermione said, sounding a bit worried. “Harry's encountered him face to face on more than one occasion, but this time I don't think we've even heard of him making an appearance.”

“Goon squad,” Scott reiterated. “He doesn't have to do his own legwork anymore.”

“I just wonder what he's up to. No matter how many people he's gathered, he's far too ambitious to be idle.”

“Running a shadow government is a lot of work. Maybe he's sitting in a boardroom right now, deciding how many snakes to put on your new flag.”

Hermione let out a rather undignified snort of laughter, which she promptly attempted cover by pretending to cough. “Whatever he comes up with, I'm sure it's nothing I'd want for representation.”

“This is the same guy who gave you the Dark necrophilia-beastiality-blowjob Mark, so probably not. He should just slap a big green middle finger on a black background, that about sums up his policy.”

“That sounds more like your policy,” Hermione said wryly.

Scott sighed. “Why, because of Sophie?”

“Are you ready to explain why she's been avoiding you?”

“Are you ready to accept it's none of your damn business?”

“I should think you'd know me better than that by now.”

Harry was beginning to feel a bit guilty about eavesdropping, seeing as the conversation was no longer concerning him. They weren't having a deeply private discussion or anything, but he still didn't want to be weird about it, standing out in the hall in the dark. He reached up and rapped the back of his hand against the door.

“Who is it?” Hermione called out.

Harry stepped into the room. “Hey. You feeling any better?” he asked Scott.

Scott was still unusually pale, but he seemed a bit more lively. “Sure, but you wouldn't know it from the way Hermione's been treating me.”

“You need to rest,” she retorted.

“You got out of bed by yourself?” Harry said, uncertain if that was a problem. He didn't actually know how bad off Scott was.

“Just to the bathroom. Then Hermione was all up in my business when I wanted to go down for dinner,” Scott complained, though he didn't sound genuinely upset about it.

“I threatened him with a full Body-Bind,” Hermione admitted.

“Yeah, it got real kinky up in here.”

Hermione swivelled to stare at him. “It what?”

Harry grinned. “I didn't know you were into that sort of thing, Hermione.”

“Oh, shut it. You're both hopelessly perverted,” she primly declared. “Is that why Sophie never spends more than a few minutes in here? Did you say something like that to her?”

“Ohhhhhh my _God,_ let it go!” Scott exclaimed.

Harry rolled his eyes and made his exit, not being all that interested in what Scott had done. Any ongoing fights between members of their little cadre could be problematic, from a standpoint of the mission, but thus far all of the Kharadjai had worked things out between themselves. Harry was glad that he hadn't been required to mediate very often. He didn't feel like he was all that good at it.

He was on his way back downstairs when Ginny called out to him from the partially opened door to the loo. “Harry!”

He stopped, turning where he stood. “Yeah?”

“Can you give me a hand with this?” she requested.

He approached the door slowly, wondering if she were up to something. His imagination was providing an abundance of images of what exactly she might be doing in the loo, most of them involving a towel and little else. He could see himself, walking into the steam-filled room and sliding his hands over her shoulders, downwards until his fingers slipped under the edge of the towel and she arched back into him, pressing her breasts into his palms—

He paused next to the door for a moment, adjusting his trousers and trying not to jump to conclusions. He didn't want to walk in there with a full erection, looking like he was expecting something that he shouldn't be.

When he stepped inside to see Ginny fully dressed in front of the mirror, he experienced a complicated mixture of disappointment and understanding. Of course it was something else. She wouldn't have left the door open at all if she'd been starkers.

“There you are,” she said, leaning into the mirror and prodding at her injured forehead. “I need a hand, I can't see what I'm doing.”

“Are you supposed to be mucking with that?” he asked.

“I have to change it, but it's stuck tight…” She winced and leaned back. “I don't want to just rip it off.”

That was a valid enough approach for lesser injuries, but Harry reckoned a head wound requiring a bandage of that size was a bit too serious for just tearing off the dressing and letting it scab. “Shouldn't you go get Sophie?”

Ginny dropped her hands and sighed at him. “I asked _you._ Can't you just help me take off a stupid plaster, be a useful boyfriend?”

“That's a bit more than a plaster,” Harry countered, but he moved in between Ginny and the tap, reaching for the edges of the dressing. “Tell me if it hurts.”

“It always hurts.” Ginny closed her eyes when he started picking at the sides of the bandage. “Ow.”

He immediately ceased. “Is that—”

“Just do it slowly.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, grip tightening.

He supposed that if he did it wrong, he'd know quick enough when her fingers dug into his skin. “I'll try to be careful.”

It took some time to get the bandage off without taking a portion of her skin with it. The stubborn thing was as glued with various fluids as it was with adhesive. Harry tried not to think about that, not because he was squeamish when it came to injury (he couldn't really afford to be, with his history) but rather because those fluids were a sign of just how hurt Ginny really was. She presented such a brave face that it was easy to forget how she'd had the worst fall of any of them.

When the bandage finally peeled free with the wet crackling noise that was unique to plaster adhesive, it revealed a mottled patch of purple and red bisected by a deep, crusty gash in the shape of a crescent. There were a few other minor cuts around it, probably from the floor, but the table had definitely left its mark. It looked exceedingly painful.

Ginny must have been studying his expression. “That bad?”

“No, it's not _that_ bad…” Harry lied.

“Budge over, let me see,” Ginny said, tugging at his shirt. When he stepped aside she leaned into the mirror until her nose was nearly touching it, face scrunched in thought. “Hmm… Bloody table got me good, looks like.”

“It'll heal soon enough. But you're still really pretty,” he hurriedly tacked on, thinking that, as she was his girlfriend, he might be expected to reassure her that the wound didn't detract from her appearance. Which wasn't true, if he were going to be honest (which he was not).

“Yeah,” Ginny said absently, apparently not really listening to him as she carefully brushed a wet cloth over the wound. “When all this is over I suppose I can see a proper Healer and get the scar removed. I don't think the table cursed me.” She suddenly froze, eyes widening.

“You all right?” Harry said.

She turned away from the mirror with glee stamped on her features. “We're going to match!” she said.

“What?”

“My scar! I mean, once it is a scar,” she said, pointing to her forehead. “Opposite side, but that's like symmetry, isn't it? We're a matched set!”

He squinted at her dubiously. “Is this the sort of thing we're going to do as a couple? Get maimed?”

“I can't tell everyone I got thrashed by a table, though,” she mused, ignoring him. “Maybe I was in a knife fight with a Dementor.”

“Sure, that's believable.”

“I can tell people I did it on purpose when I want to be left alone. That'll be fun,” she snickered. “I'll tell them I was trying to carve a dragon to match your tattoo.”

“All the girls at Hogwarts, and I just had to snog one that's mental.”

“You love it,” she said confidently.

He couldn't exactly deny it. “You'll want to get rid of the scar, eventually. I got tired of everyone staring at mine about halfway through first year.”

“Your scar means something, though,” she said, and then a flash of dismay flitted across her features as she must have remembered that his scar meant more than they'd ever realised. “I— I mean—”

“It's all right,” he interrupted her. The last thing he wanted was for everyone to start avoiding the topic as if it would damage him; that was even worse than talking about it. “You don't think your scar is going to be as impressive? It's a pretty big table.”

She let out a startled laugh, delighted and relieved. “It is! It's a bloody big table, I was brave to attack it with my face like I did. I probably saved us all!”

“My hero,” Harry said with a level of honesty that he knew would go unnoticed.

He watched whilst Ginny applied a fresh bandage to her wound. He noticed the darkness beneath her eyes and the way she swayed slightly on her feet. Despite her jovial mood, it was obvious she was still not feeling well. He should probably encourage her to get some rest, if that wasn't already her intent.

“Are you going to bed?” he asked.

“Yeah, I was on my way up when Sophie told me I had to change this.” Ginny pursed her lips. “I asked why she wasn't doing it, if it's so important, and she told me to stop being a baby.”

Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise. “She said that?”

“Well, more polite, like. But same thing.”

Harry was amused at the thought of Sophie being so blunt, even if she probably hadn't been. “I suppose she thought you could put a bandage on well enough.”

“I'll find out soon. It'll hurt if it comes off,” Ginny said, carefully pressing the bandage with the palm of her hand.

Harry took her hand and guided her towards the door. “Come on, you should try and get some sleep.”

“I feel like that's all I've been doing,” she complained, but went with him willingly.

Harry reckoned there was some truth to that, but for once he wasn't in a hurry to push their mission forward. Everyone was hurting, and infiltrating Gringotts seemed like an impossible task, so he wasn't opposed to taking the time to stop, heal, and think about what to do next. The danger of Riddle discovering his missing Horcruxes was always present, but Harry had no control over that. The whole thing was a gamble, really, always had been.

At the very least, even if Riddle _did_ replace a Horcrux, the wizarding world would know what to expect. He wouldn't have the element of surprise, nor would his untethered spirit be free to roam unhindered. Harry would personally hunt it down, to Albania or the ends of the earth. Assuming he was still alive at that point, anyway. Presumably he would be, if Riddle had lost his body again. Unless they killed each other simultaneously. Harry supposed that would be ironic, or something. He wasn't sure of the word for it.

He followed Ginny into their room and lay down next to her when she collapsed on the mattress. He wasn't all that tired yet, but it seemed as if she wanted the company, if the way she wrapped herself around his arm was any indication. Besides, he'd discovered that sleep was so much easier to slip into with Ginny serving as a heated blanket. Her relaxed form and even breathing set an example that his own body would soon follow.

***---~**~---*** 

Ron carefully brushed the remnants of his pre-bedtime snack off the table and dumped the crumbs in the bin. Cleanliness had never been a high priority of his, but Sophie had just cleaned the kitchen again and he didn't want to be the first to ruin it. He probably wouldn't have bothered, back at The Burrow. Sophie, however, wasn't family and he had to work with her. He may have been apathetic about housekeeping, but he believed in the value of team unity. There were a fair number of people in Grimmauld Place and all of them were under tremendous stress. He had found himself stepping a bit more carefully than he was used to.

He'd had to play peacemaker fairly often, and it wasn't a role to which he was accustomed. Hermione had traditionally been the one to try and smooth things over, but that was when it had been just the three of them. The dynamic was different, now. There were more people in the mix, and she hadn't been able to exert even the marginal control she had over Harry and Ron when it came to Scott. And just like that, Ron had found himself in the middle of most arguments.

But he didn't always mind the responsibility, because at least then he felt like he was contributing _something,_ even if it was just to be the one person who wasn't fully invested in a row. Between Hermione's intellect, Scott's experience, Harry's leadership and Sophie's making sure no one starved, the roles were pretty well full up. Ron didn't know why he and Ginny were even there, sometimes. Just emotional support and another wand, he supposed.

Well, that was sort of a stupid thing to think, really. That was his frustration talking. It had once bothered him even more, but after a few forays against the Death Eaters (and listening to Scott with one ear), Ron reckoned he'd seen enough combat to understand that being an extra target had more value than what it sounded like. If he had nothing to do in a fight but split the enemy's firepower, then that was still a job worth doing. Battle was random beyond any game, but it did have at least one thing in common with chess: numbers mattered. Every Death Eater he could account for was that many less between his friends and the objective. Even a pawn was vital if properly used.

He meandered his way to the upper reaches of Grimmauld, knowing that Hermione was working on either Harry's mirrors or that heat thing Scott had told her about; although, Harry's Horcrux situation was more urgent and likely the focus of her efforts, come to think of it. Ron was trying not to think of it, most of the time. There wasn't anything he could do about it at the moment, and it wasn't like Harry would appreciate pity or hysterics.

Ron didn't want to interrupt Hermione, but he also didn't want to be downstairs by himself. If he wasted a bit more time it wouldn't matter, because then he could make her put her books down and sleep instead.

“Hello? Who's there? Harry?” a voice called out, interrupting Ron's thoughts. He went towards the sound and discovered a green eye peeking through a thin gap in the door to the loo. It was Sophie.

“Uh, it's Ron,” he said to her; or to her eye, anyway.

“Good, good, I need your help,” she said quickly, not opening the door any further.

Ron was beginning to suspect that she was starkers, or something close to it. “With what?”

“I just got a call and Lil's outside. Outside the house, I mean, she can't get in. Can you go let her in? Since you're a Secret Giver?”

Ron frowned. “Lila? Wait, how did she—”

“She knew because Lupin and then I talked to her before, but I can't let her in and she called me at a very bad time, as you can see, so if you could just please…”

Ron was willing to help, but it occurred to him that they weren't supposed to go outside. “Is it safe, though? I should probably get Harry.”

It was difficult to tell with only a single eye to judge by, but Sophie seemed to be somewhat impatient with him. “I told her we were at house eleven, so she'll be right out there and I know she'll notice the spell, and you'll be invisible at the door, right?”

That had been true when Remus had come around. And it wasn't as if Lila weren't a decent Death Eater deterrent. “Yeah, should be all right. I'll handle it.”

He hurried back down the stairs, finding himself glad to have something to handle, even if it was of minor importance and had been tasked to him simply because he had been the one out in the hall at the right moment. It was just nice to contribute. He'd spent too much time practising his spells and waiting for the chance to use them. Half the time it seemed like Hermione was the only one who got anything done at Grimmauld.

He hesitated at the front door, wishing there were a window or some other way of seeing the street before he opened it. Perhaps he ought to have gone to the drawing room first, and looked out the windows there. But, he'd be invisible, which should be protection enough. Opening the door felt forbidden, somehow. What was it called when a person was afraid to leave the house? He was sure there was a name for it.

He raised his wand and opened the door, the dim light of late evening glowing down from above. The sounds of the city were sudden and slightly startling, as they were almost totally muffled within the confines of Grimmauld. The drawing room was the only place where the passing cars could be faintly heard. Distant horns and sirens sounded, traffic busied down the streets, the wind thrummed through the alleys.

Lila was standing on the pavement right in front of the next house over, number eleven. She was idle beneath a street lamp; her expression was blank, but her stance seemed a bit bored.

“Lila!” he called to her, before remembering that she couldn't see or hear him. He was quite surprised, then, when she turned to look at him.

“Yeah? Who is that?” she replied, blinking oddly. She peered in Ron's direction, but wasn't quite looking at the right spot.

“It's Ron,” he said. “You aren't supposed to be able to see me.”

“You're blurry, and you aren't always there. I've been stopping whatever your house is doing to me, but it doesn't give up.” Lila blinked again and glanced away, appearing a bit disoriented.

Ron realised that he hadn't brought anything to write with. “Er, do you have a quill, by chance?”

“Try this instead,” Lila said, tossing a pen in his general direction.

He retrieved it from the steps and wrote on the palm of his hand, hoping it was legible enough to count. “All right, look at this.”

Lila slowly approached him, one arm outstretched in front of her as if she were walking through a dark room. When she drew close enough, Ron carefully caught her by the wrist and brought his palm close to her eyes. He had a brief worry that she would involuntarily snap his arm like a twig for grabbing her: she'd always seemed like the sort of person who wasn't to be touched without permission.

He could see the moment when the charm extended to include her. Her eyes adjusted, widening from their squint, and she looked over Ron's shoulder at the door. “Interesting,” she commented.

“Didn't you do the same thing with the rest of the family?” Ron asked, leading her inside.

“No. Yes, with the reading part. But we went straight there from The Burrow.”

Ron immediately wished he had remembered to warn her about Mrs Black's portrait. Fortunately, Lila didn't trip over the umbrella stand or say anything loudly, and she passed the curtains without incident. Ron shut the door as quietly as he could and then gestured Lila forward towards the stairs.

“It's kind of dark in here,” Lila noted as they walked.

“It was even worse before Sophie gave the place a scrubbing,” Ron told her.

“I can only imagine. I'm surprised she hasn't started stripping wallpaper and varnish.”

Lila hadn't said why she'd made the trip to Grimmauld, but Ron could guess. He led her up to the master bedroom, normally Kylie's room, where Scott had been recovering. The door to the room was partially opened, and it sounded like Scott and Hermione were discussing something within. Lila yanked the door open and stepped inside without waiting for confirmation.

Hermione was seated in the chair next to the bed, leaning forward in mid-gesture as she explained something. Scott had been looking back at her with an expression of interest; when Lila approached the foot of the bed his face went carefully blank. Hermione's eyes widened in surprise when Lila entered, but when she saw the siblings gazing coolly at each other she quickly stood and moved to Ron.

“Well, you're not holding a weapon, so that's a good sign,” Scott said, breaking the heavy silence.

“Maybe I want to beat you to death with my bare hands,” Lila said flatly.

Scott lazily spread his arms, indicating his bedridden condition. “If you're ever going to have a chance, now would be the time.”

Ron felt a tug on his sleeve, and he looked down at Hermione. “We should go,” she said quietly.

Ron wasn't sure about that. “You want to leave them alone? Now?” he whispered back.

She was insistent, pulling him out into the hall. “We shouldn't be here for this.” She carefully closed the door, and then turned back to him. “Besides, if they decide to attack each other, it's not as if we could stop them.”

“What was that all about?” Ron wondered as he followed Hermione back to their room.

“I'm not certain, though it likely has something to do with Scott's condition, or the same reason that Sophie's been avoiding him. It's none of our business.”

“You think so?” Ron said with a scoff. “Our business became Scott's quick enough.”

“Well, if it were us, then, Scott would barge his way into the room and conversation. Would you like to go back and try that?” Hermione asked with a wry twist of her lips.

“I'm in enough pain without Lila kicking my arse,” Ron said.

“So you understand the issue. Our Kharadjai allies have their uses, but their immunity to anything short of lethal force makes them somewhat difficult to bully,” Hermione mused.

Hermione had never been what Ron would consider the violent sort, but her ability with magic had allowed her to 'encourage' her male friends when it came to revision or the finer points of hygiene. Hence her evident frustration when Scott had required a different approach, unconcerned as he was regarding most threats, physical or otherwise. Fortunately for her, Scott was susceptible to logic — probably more than Harry and Ron ever had been, if Ron were going to be honest with himself.

“Still, we should tell Sophie,” Hermione continued. “I'm sure she'll interfere if necessary. If only to save the furniture.”

Ron was about to agree when Sophie provided proof that Hermione was correct. The tiny woman came hurrying up the hall with her wet hair swaying heavily around her neck, appearing a bit flustered.

“Oh, crud,” she said under her breath as she approached them. “Ron, did you let Lila in?”

“Um, yeah. Didn't you want me to?” he said.

“Yes, no, that's fine. It's all fine,” she said distractedly. “She shouldn't… I mean, he's still sick, she knows that…”

“I remember Lila getting a bit rough with Scott on at least one occasion, but do they ever actually fight with… more serious intent?” Hermione finished delicately.

Sophie immediately shook her head. “No, they know better than that. I've never seen them really hurt each other outside of sparring, you know, like actual training. Still…” She shifted nervously, “Lil might be really mad.”

“Is that why she suddenly appeared? I wasn't aware that she was visiting,” Hermione said with a note of reproach.

“It wasn't something we planned, she just… Well, it's Lila,” Sophie muttered. “Excuse me, I need to…” Her mouth slowly closed, apparently unable to find the right word.

“Mediate?” Hermione suggested.

“I hope not,” Sophie sighed, and hurried past them towards the master bedroom.

“Wouldn't want to be her,” Ron said as he watched her go.

“I know I shouldn't pry, but I do wish I knew what was happening. I'd thought Scott was recovering well enough, but if Lila is here then perhaps his condition is serious,” Hermione said, frowning.

“It sounded more like Lila was hacked off about something he did, not checking on him,” Ron pointed out.

“True. But what could he have done? We were trapped in the dream and then he's been in bed since we awoke.”

Ron shrugged, honestly not all that concerned with the details. When it came to the Kharadjai and all the things they got up to, he sometimes felt that he was better off not knowing. “Said something stupid, I reckon.”

“I'd just like Scott to recover, along with the rest of us, and Sophie to help me with a few things whilst we sort out this Horcrux problem. We've entirely too much to do, we don't need to waste time arguing,” Hermione said firmly.

“Anything I can help with?” Ron said, not really wanting to go to bed just yet.

“Actually, yes,” Hermione said with a smile. “I need someone else to help with the mirrors, I can't use them at a distance alone, and there's also a few thermal colouring spells I'd like you to see. Then there're the books that Dumbledore gave us, we can start by looking for some specific keywords—”

Ron followed her to their bedroom, less eager at the prospect of what sounded a lot like homework than he was at easing his girlfriend's burden.

***---~**~---*** 

Lila stood at the foot of Scott's bed and fought hard to repress the anger and hurt she felt when looking at him.

Scott, of course, made the task not one iota easier. “You scared off my talking buddy,” he said, looking sadly at the empty chair where Hermione had been. “Way to go.”

“That's okay, you get to talk to me,” Lila said forebodingly.

Scott sighed and closed his eyes. “I just want to go one friggin' day without having a painful heart to heart with someone.”

“Then we should have done this a long time ago. And that wasn't my decision,” Lila said tightly.

Scott winced slightly. “Come on, Lil. What do you even want me to say? I'm pretty sure Sophie covered it.”

“And why did she, Scott? Why did Sophie have to _cover it?”_ Lila could hear the sharpness in her voice rising beyond her control and quickly went silent, clenching her fists.

Amazingly, Scott began chuckling.

Lila's anger intensified. “I'm glad this is just a joke to you.”

“No, no, I just— I had this thought, like, all these kids here think we're like aliens or something, but, if they were listening, even though we're alone we're just arguing in English. From another universe.”

Lila seriously considered taking one of her boots off to throw at him. “How is that… Are you delirious?”

“I just thought it was weird.”

“It's weird that we would argue with each other in English… which is our first language,” she said flatly.

“Yeah. I mean, kinda. To other people.”

“If you're going to just blow me off, you could at least have the decency to make fucking sense,” she seethed.

“I'm tired, all right!” he suddenly erupted, hands fisting in his sheets. “I'm tired as shit and I don't want to fight with you, I just want to skip to the part where we're okay again!”

“You don't get to lie to me for this long and then skip ahead!”

“I wasn't…” Scott clamped his mouth shut and sighed through his nose, probably deciding that claiming a lie of omission wasn't technically lying was not the best course of action. “Everybody's got shit they don't want to talk about, and this is right near the top of my personal list. Not to mention it's the sort of thing I didn't need getting back to command and now I'm stuck in bed surrounded by Primes who know entirely too much about my problem. So fuck this.”

“So fuck you!” Lila spat. “You never said a thing, not even when I practically came out and asked—”

“The hell you did, you never—”

“Did you want it in writing? All those long talks after shaperate, all the advice and techniques and you never once decided that you should talk about how overcognizance might affect you and therefore me! Did you really think I was interested in your results just for class? Did my fixation on the subject or the way I've brought it back up over the years ever strike you as being some kind of _hint?”_

Scott blinked. “I don't think it's going to affect you, I know it can be hereditary but considering where we're from—”

“You are my brother and it would fucking well affect me!” she yelled, raising her voice more than she'd intended, though she was just about past the point of caring.

“Oh, you meant it like that. If I went nuts it wouldn't… You wouldn't lose the house or anything, they insure us pretty comprehensively. Ol' Mater Solus would flip the arca for my drool bibs.”

“Yes, because that was my concern: the _money.”_

Scott must have seen something in her eyes that made him shrink back slightly into his pillow. “Okay, I can see how I may have just insulted you—”

“Do you? Or have you done absolutely nothing but trivialise my concerns and act like not telling your sister and sole family member that you have a degenerative condition which is exacerbated by your work is hardly even worth discussing?” Lila said in a voice of ice.

“Lil, this was never about trust, this is about—”

“Denial?”

“Will you let me fucking finish?! …But, yes.” He sighed. “Sort of. Look, I didn't even know that I had a problem until I was already applying for rating, and by that point I just… I squeezed by the testing, maybe they shaved a point or two but it was all worth it. It counted for something. I've always been borderline, I always will be, but that hasn't stopped me yet. These guys need me, Lil.”

“I'm not questioning the value of your work, Scott, or why you've kept this quiet. That's evident. I'm questioning why you thought you had to keep this from me and make me think that somehow, despite what my experience and your scores and everything I'd learned told me, you were exempt. And don't you dare try to tell me that this is the first time.” Lila's voice grew hoarse with emotion. “You let me believe that you would never get anything more than a little dizzy, or a little confused. You let me believe that all those signs in your behaviour, all the markers in your personality, were as far as it would ever go. Did you think that was kinder?”

Scott rubbed one finger between his tightly shut eyes. “This is going to sound awful, but it wasn't really about _you…”_

Lila felt the pang deep in her chest, a hurt she couldn't quash fast enough. “I didn't matter.” She had been clinging to the shreds of her stoicism with all her strength, but it wasn't enough. The words emerged not merely solemn, as she'd intended, but quietly defeated.

“That's not what I'm saying.” Scott at least did her the courtesy of meeting her eyes. “As long as I can keep moving, there's always something else to think about. It's been long enough since it was this bad that I didn't even have to consider it. I choose… to ignore this particular weakness. It's not like I can do anything about it.”

“You can stop using the shape,” Lila acerbically suggested.

“As a last resort, sure, but until things get bad enough that I have to, I've still got a job to do.”

“And you don't think it will ever come to that.”

“I can't.”

Lila looked at him in silence, keeping her face impassive. Gratifyingly, Scott was too tired and out of sorts to fully hide his discomfort. “You still could have told me,” she said finally.

“I'm sorry. God, I've been saying that a lot. Probably means something. But I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really, really fucking sorry. I can't say it enough. Literally, it doesn't matter. I know it's too late.”

“You know, Scott, I'm not even sure what I expected. All those long talks we had about us were really just long talks about me, weren't they? You could probably sketch a floor plan for the orphanage, but you won't tell me shit about my own dad.”

“That's another one of those things that I don't really talk about…”

“Yeah, I'm aware! Did it ever occur to you, in either instance, that maybe I deserve to hear it anyway?” she demanded.

Scott put his face in his hands and sank lower into his sheets. “God, Lil, please forgive me. Please? I'm already so tired of this and we just started. I don't want to be crazy, I'm not doing it on purpose. It might never happen again, a Horcrux did it, not a lot of those back home. I owe you, okay? I'll… I'll make you a deal. When we wrap this up, we'll sit down and I'll tell you anything you want to know that I can remember. Just don't expect too much. I've spent a lot of time trying to forget.”

What Lila wanted was for him to have told her before he'd stumbled into his current state, but, as he'd said, it was too late. At least he was appropriately apologetic. She wouldn't admit it to him, but it was proving difficult to stay angry when he was so pale and obviously sick. Her need to care for him was at war with her desire to hurt him for hurting her. It wasn't a very noble impulse, but it was too strong to ignore.

She couldn't help but push the knife just a little deeper. “I just thought I was the one person you knew you could trust.”

“You are!” Scott immediately exclaimed, dropping his hands. “Jesus, Lil, you know I trust you with everything, up to and including my goddamn Primes! It was never about that, it was about pretending that there was nothing wrong with me, even to myself. I don't like that this can happen — even though, I remind you, it almost never does — so I ignore it.”

She squinted at him. “Hmm. That doesn't seem like it should make it better, but it does. Slightly.”

“I'm sorry,” Scott sighed, closing his eyes again.

She shook her head in disbelief. “You going crazy can't be all bad, I kind of like you in this state. I don't think I've ever heard you apologise so much or so sincerely, you were so much easier to break than I expected.”

“You're such a bi-hi-hitch…” Scott groaned, unable to finish the word without chuckling his way through it.

Lila reached into a pocket and pulled out a bottle of what Republic pilots sometimes called 'jump juice', a cocktail of nutrients and electrolytes that came in a flavour optimistically labelled 'berry'. “Brought you something.”

Scott pushed himself up to get a better look at it. “Ah, you're my favourite shorty with a forty,” he said, extended one hand out for the bottle.

She held it just out of his reach. “What's the magic word?”

“…I don't even know anymore, there are so many now.”

“I could do with a few more, 'I'm sorry's.”

Scott let his head loll off his shoulder and hang towards the floor. “Look, I'm like Snoopy. I'm so sorry and sad and without dignity.”

“Like Snoopy?” she repeated, giving him the drink.

“Yeah, I was hanging my head.”

“Because he's a dog? I thought he did the head thing when he was pretending to be a vulture.”

“I didn't say it was a perfect comparison. I'm all sick and shit, whatever,” Scott mumbled, bringing the bottle to his lips.

“Get some sleep,” she said. “I'll decide whether or not to kill you in the morning.”

“Stay of execution,” Scott slurred. He snapped the bottle shut and handed it back to her. “You're a peach.”

Lila left the bottle on the night stand in case Scott wanted it later. That was about as far as her goodwill extended at the moment, though, so she left without asking if he needed anything else.

Scott had managed to say the right things (eventually), and Lila was no longer as enraged as she had been on arrival. The hurt would take longer to fade: it wasn't the most gracious sentiment, but she knew she would be holding the whole affair over his head for years to come. She understood that he simply hadn't wanted to think about it. She even understood that he'd never told her in confidence because ignoring his condition had become a deeply ingrained habit. She didn't like it, but she understood. Everyone had aspects of themselves that they preferred not to let out into the light.

Understanding didn't take away the hurt, especially since their sharing had been historically one-sided. Hopefully their confrontation would be the eventual end of his reticence.

Knowing Scott, however, it would take a few more showdowns to hold him to his promise.

Lila shut the door behind her and turned to find Sophie standing in the hall. “Wow, you're not even trying to hide your snooping,” Lila drawled.

“I'm not a snoop!” Sophie protested.

“Okay, Snoopy.” Lila tilted her head, considering that. “You're even hovering like a vulture.”

“I'm not a… snoopy. Or a bird,” Sophie said slowly, clearly confused.

“Forget it. Don't you have a rug to de-lint or something?” Lila said brusquely, brushing past the other woman.

“Wha—? What did I do?” Sophie exclaimed, pressing her hands to her chest.

“You mean besides listening in?”

“I was making sure you two didn't kill each other! I didn't hear exactly what you said, I promise.” Sophie squirmed a little, and then added, “Except when you yelled.”

“Snoop,” Lila said, poking Sophie in the shoulder.

“I was worried. I know you were upset. Though, you seem to be better?” Sophie said hesitantly.

“We did some work on it. There will be more to come, I'm sure you can eavesdrop on those sessions later.”

“Oh, good grief,” Sophie muttered, walking towards the stairs. “This is what I get for caring.”

Lila had never doubted Sophie's investment in her friends, and usually appreciated it despite the occasionally annoying nature of her meddling. “Not going to tuck him in, Strauss?” Lila called after her, still feeling tense enough to want to needle someone.

“I'm not his mother,” Sophie shot back as she descended.

“And thank God for that,” Lila said under her breath.

Lila had already decided that she would be spending the night at Grimmauld, and possibly a few days after. To further that end, she poked her head into several bedrooms, including one with motorcycle paraphernalia, where Kylie's recognisable strawberry-blonde tresses were scattered across a pillow — Lila made a mental note to talk to her about Trevor. There was an empty room just across the hall from the motorcycle room, which Lila claimed for herself. The décor was awful, but the bed was soft enough. Maybe a little _too_ soft, even.

With a little luck, she'd wake up feeling less need to strangle her brother.


	31. Solve for X

**31**

**Solve for X**  

\---

_“This idea, that [the shape] is capable of  
_ _offering detailed planning, is pervasive;  
_ _indeed, it is a concept which can be traced  
_ _to the root of the infamous disaster at  
_ _Mainland One, an incident which remains a  
_ _testament to the strength and, ultimately,  
_ _seductive nature of the sentiment (as well as  
_ _the seductive nature of the shape itself). Any  
_ _endeavour which requires preparation will  
_ _inherently lead those involved to question  
_ _whether the shape holds information of any  
_ _pertinent use. The answers that follow are  
_ _where the trouble may lie, as those answers  
_ _are so prone to misinterpretation, or, even more  
_ _likely, never truly extant.”_

_—_ Dr Joseph Carnahan, _New Constellations_  

\---

“Fidelity?”

“…It's okay,” Sophie said after a moment of observation. “Not as good as the other one.”

“I'd expected as much. The earmuffs were heartening, at least, if impractical,” Hermione said.

“Well, we can always make something that will fit in our ears. These are just a test pair for the network,” Sophie said encouragingly.

“Yes, it doesn't do us much good to hear each other and nothing else. What if we tried making the sound from the mirrors extend in more directions, so you don't have to be looking at them to hear clearly?”

Sophie sucked her lips inward in an expression that Hermione had come to recognise as the Kharadjai woman thinking of the most tactful way to reject a bad idea. “That could work, but in combat a lot times you need to control sound as much as possible. Like, if you stuck the mirror in your pocket so you could hear it, anyone trying to target you could probably hear it, too.”

“Of course, you're right,” Hermione sighed. “So we need to either find a way to mute the mirrors so they'll be blank when not in use, or move the entire system to some sort of custom earpieces.”

The two of them were in the midst of the long and painstaking process of duplicating the mirrors which Sirius had given to Harry. Along the way they had split their research into different avenues of possibility, from simply making more small mirrors to complicated combinations of the Protean charm and Muggle technology. Hermione considered the ultimate end to be the creation of a compact, wearable communications device which could provide Muggle radio contact, magic-mirror voice and magic-mirror visuals as needed. She was finding that it was extremely difficult to fashion any sort of switch for the mirrors that would allow them to only broadcast sound and image when required, even with Sophie's help. Portable audio seemed a much more achievable goal.

Hermione had first been studying the books Dumbledore had provided on blood magic, but after hours spent trying to sort through poorly organised and often contradictory information, she had switched to a different problem. Blood magic was an extremely ancient facet of the craft, never addressed at Hogwarts and largely unused by wizarding society (indeed, it was most often utilised inadvertently). Many aspects of it were even illegal, and rightly so. Blood magic, like so many other branches of magic, could easily be twisted for Dark purposes — and Voldemort had already done so.

Hermione had read enough to know that tying anyone to Harry through blood would require the manufacture of either a powerful magical artefact or the use of equally powerful reagents. Riddle had used flesh, bone and blood for his ritual, all of them taken from portentous sources. His methods were not applicable, however, as Hermione was not attempting to restore the fragment of a soul to a body. She needed to recreate the side-effect of the ritual, the binding of soul to soul through blood infused with the magic of sacrifice.

“So I have these, those threads we talked about?” Sophie was saying, tapping her pen against the inscrutable diagram she kept referring to. None of the patterns or notations made a bit of sense to Hermione, a fact that Sophie never quite seemed to remember. “See, that's the sixteen strands which are Component. Now, I think it's actually like a volume or maybe pitch control, with eight to twelve being Symbiotic on a harmonic range—”

Sophie's words were spoken in clear English, and yet were slowly becoming more and more unintelligible. Hermione realised that she was experiencing what Ron and Harry must have underwent every time she had explained Arithmancy to them. And she did not care for it at all.

“I think… that we should take a break,” Hermione said reluctantly.

“I was going to suggest that awhile ago, I just got caught up in the shaperate,” Sophie said with a guilty smile. “You've been exhausting yourself. I know you're trying to help Harry, but you can't do this all the time.”

“I did do this all the time! I cannot even tell you how many hours I spent in the library at school,” Hermione said.

“You never stopped to eat, or read something fun?”

In fact, Hermione had strictly regulated her studying at Hogwarts outside of the occasional emergencies, such as the Tri-Wizard Tournament. She'd known the importance of allowing the brain to rest, and had read many books both fiction and non-fiction in addition to the drier tomes of learning; of course, she had also spent a great deal of time in class or with her friends. It was an effective regimen that she had abandoned at Grimmauld, feeling the incredible pressure of producing the means to advance their war. She knew her comprehension suffered for it, but she couldn't allow herself to stop.

“Things were different at Hogwarts,” Hermione answered evasively. “I have so much to do here.”

“Well, you can't do it if your eyes get all crispy and gross,” Sophie declared as if that were both common wisdom and parlance.

Hermione reflexively rubbed at her eyes. “All right, we'll stop for now. Thank you for all your help.”

“Any time, just ask!” Sophie said. She trotted out into the hallway, probably going to check on Scott.

Hermione debated on doing the same, if only for a moment. Scott's recovery had ended up being the measurement for the group as a whole, followed by Ginny and then Ron as a distant third. Of course, even if they were were all fully functional before too long, there remained the question as to whether any moves should be made against Riddle before Harry was purged of his Horcrux. His condition had not been a liability previously, but it was difficult to consider it anything less than a priority.

All of which wasn't even addressing the seemingly insurmountable problem of getting into Gringotts. There was so much to do, but so many of those things couldn't be done. Hermione almost missed the way things had been, going day to day without a hint of a future plan. Every excursion thus far had practically fallen into their laps. It made her understand why Harry preferred to act on instinct. When preparation seemed impossible, any action felt efficacious by comparison.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. The pressure was getting to her. She really did need a break, even if only for an hour or two. She couldn't help Harry if she were too worn and frustrated to think properly.

She made her way down to the kitchen, intent on getting something to drink. Upon stepping into the downstairs room, it gave her quite a jolt to see someone unfamiliar. Recognition followed almost immediately (it was Lila, of course), but Hermione had become accustomed to seeing the same people, and had momentarily forgotten that Lila had come to visit.

“Did I scare you?” Lila said wryly, crumpling up the wrapper she was holding.

“A bit. We don't get out much, come to think of it,” Hermione admitted. “How's Scott?”

“Arrogant, secretive, not as funny as he thinks he is and too wily for his own good,” Lila assessed.

“Yes. How about physically?”

Lila shrugged. “Better. He'll be at baseline level by tonight, and full strength within forty-eight hours.”

“And by baseline level, I assume you mean he'll be as physically capable as we are?”

“If you were six foot two and in combat shape, sure.”

“I believe I'm fairly fit,” Hermione said, looking down at herself. “If not especially tall.”

“Don't take it personally. You're in great shape for a scholar,” Lila qualified.

Hermione still felt a bit insulted. She knew it was unrealistic to hold herself to Kharadjai spec ops standards of fitness, but Lila's dismissive words were sort of a disappointment. Perhaps all of their impromptu preparation would never be enough. What if the level of capability needed to win the war required years of training that they simply did not have? Wars were fought by soldiers for a reason.

Well, not all wars. And it was an irregular conflict they were mired in, to be sure. They were very fortunate that the enemy had little — if any — more military experience than they did. The fate of the United Kingdom was in the hands of all sorts of amateurs. Even Riddle had spent his life in the study of magic, not war.

It was all rather pathetic, really. Perhaps Scott's occasional condescension wasn't entirely unearned.

Not that Hermione would ever admit that to him.

“Well, this scholar is taking a breather,” she settled on saying. “Also on Sophie's recommendation. I suppose she's the closest thing we have to a medical authority here.”

“That's actually true. She was with PRAMTAG for awhile, so she edges out me and Scott for pure experience.”

Hermione was willing to take her word for it, feeling a bit too worn to seek an explanation on where PRAMTAG fit within the vast Kharadjai Republic amalgamation of acronyms, code words and organisations. “We've been grateful for her assistance. I don't know what we'd have done without her.”

“Taken some risks to get food, I guess,” Lila speculated, “and not had anyone to tell you to take a break. Or warn you about your eyes getting crispy.”

“She did say that, actually…”

“I have no idea where she got that from. It's super weird.” Lila pointed at Hermione. “Oh, I just remembered: Scott wanted to talk to you. He's upstairs in that room with the couch.”

Hermione cast a longing glance at the refrigerator. “I'll be up to see him after I've had something to drink.”

“I don't think it was urgent,” Lila said, unconcerned by the delay.

Hermione retrieved a can of one of the Muggle citrus drinks that Kylie seemed to enjoy so much. Hermione was more of a cola girl, but she'd take whatever was available. “I know there was some tension between yourself and Scott,” she said as she popped open the top of the drink. “Have the two of you settled things? I don't wish to pry,” she lied, “I'm only hoping it won't continue to be an issue.”

“It's not the kind of thing that just goes away. It's also not the kind of thing you need to concern yourself with,” Lila said flatly.

That was blunt enough. “Of course,” Hermione said complaisantly. “Well, I'll see what Scott wants.”

Upstairs, she found Scott in the drawing room playing a board game with Kylie. The game board and all of its pieces looked new, and must have been something Sophie had bought on one of her shopping excursions.

“Three, four, five,” Scott said, counting out the spaces as he moved his piece. “Gotta draw a card — 'Go directly to jail'. That is absolute horse— poop. I'll give you five hundred for a get out of jail card.”

Kylie clutched the card to her chest as if she expected him to take it from her by force. “But I might need it.”

“Six hundred. And I'll throw in this stick of string cheese you've been eyeing.”

Kylie hesitated, glancing towards the food on the cushion next to Scott.

“Don't do it, Kylie; let him rot,” Hermione advised from the doorway.

“Hit the bricks, curly, this is a private negotiation,” Scott said loudly, eyes still locked with Kylie's.

Hermione crossed her arms. “You're the one who wanted to see me.”

“Oh, yeah. I did tell Lil that.” Scott set his faux-money down on the table and picked up the string cheese, handing it to Kylie. “Good talk, Kylie. Take five or ten or whatever, we'll table this for now. String cheese break.”

Kylie scampered away, clutching her prize. Scott leaned back on the settee and rubbed at his eyes, still appearing somewhat tired. Most of the colour had returned to his face, however, and his motions were no longer slow and unsteady.

“Not the best pricing strategy on my end. Could have just paid the fine, it wouldn't have mattered either way. This game is all about screwing people over, and Kylie just doesn't have that killer instinct,” Scott said with a wan smile. “She kept wanting to share houses with me.”

“She never struck me as particularly competitive,” Hermione said, taking the chair Kylie had vacated. “It's still a bit odd to hear her talk, honestly.”

“She's not much for words.” Scott let his palms fall against his thighs with a loud slap. “So. What's been happening?”

“You mean besides your mysterious malady?”

“Exactly besides that.”

“Lila says you've nearly recovered, is that accurate?”

“Exactly _besides_ that.”

Hermione frowned at him. “You can't even tell me if you're well?”

“That's a very relative state.”

“That's not an answer.”

Scott merely raised one eyebrow in her direction.

Hermione pursed her lips thoughtfully. “This isn't even privileged information, it can't be. You brought me up here because you said you wanted to talk, but instead you only wanted to anger me. You can play games with someone else — or more literal ones with Kylie. I'm going back downstairs to eat something.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Scott said quickly, holding up his hands in the sign for surrender. “I thought you were with me. What about the eyebrow thing, not even that? Wasn't that kind of funny? I mean, we've done this so much…”

Hermione sighed. “Scott, I'm tired and frustrated and I just wanted to know that you're going to be fine. You were not in your right mind and I was frightened for you.”

Scott's features immediately softened; he must have appreciated such an honest admission. “I'm better. I'd like to tell you that I'll just walk it off, but the thing with shape sickness is that it's never exactly the same. It's not like I've ever been trapped in a Horcrux before.”

“I believe that was a unique experience for all of us,” Hermione said, and fervently hoped that would remain the case.

“It could be worse, at least for the timing. We made ourselves some space.”

“Have we?” Hermione wondered. “I realise that between securing this place and eliminating the Horcruxes we have it seems as if we've been effective, but can we really make that determination without knowing what Riddle has been doing?”

“I know you've been worried that we haven't seen him.”

“Which sounds silly, I'm aware. God forbid I should ever want to see him.”

“I get what you mean, though. Unless we know his plans, we can't gauge what kind of impact we've had on them.” Scott pointed at her. “Just keep in mind that if our plans actually intersect with his, then we're screwed. What we're doing shouldn't have anything to do with what he's doing, not directly.”

“True. And we have no evidence that he's onto us.” She worried at her lower lip. “And no evidence that he isn't.”

“That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Scott said, kicking his legs up onto the settee and leaning over to lie against one of the arms. “I think we should consider going back to at least a couple key locations and installing some traps of our own. Something that would let us know if Riddle finds out we've been messing with his stuff.”

“I suppose we could,” Hermione said, considering the idea. “Although, my first thought is that even if we did know he'd discovered a missing Horcrux, what would we do about it?”

Scott awkwardly shrugged in his prone position. “Not a clue, but we'd know that we had to do _something._ Increase the pressure, maybe. Or it would be our cue for a desperate assault. Is he vulnerable when making a Horcrux? It seems like it would be hard. Point is, we'd know when the clock speeds up.”

“I think it's a good idea,” Hermione told him. “Keep in mind we're not in the best shape at the moment, collectively.”

Scott made a dismissive gesture. “Don't worry about it, this is something me and Lil can take care of. I can probably get us to that cave, but I'll have to see if she can track down the shack. Harry knows this shit. Speaking of him, I heard you've been working on his problem.”

“I have,” Hermione confirmed.

“You got anything?”

“Only in a very rudimentary sense. I've yet to fully understand how it all works, but based on what I've read I do believe that we can use a ritual to extend the magic of his mother's sacrifice to ourselves.”

Scott squinted at her. “You're making it sound like there's a catch.”

Hermione blew out a short breath. “Riddle used a variety of reagents in his ritual, all of which were both symbolic and magically powerful. We can't duplicate the same process, for reasons practical and moral, so we'll need something else. An artefact of some kind, preferably one relating to Harry.”

“The crib at the cottage,” Scott said immediately.

Hermione blinked, surprised by the speed of the suggestion. “…It might work,” she said after considering it for a moment. “The Hollow isn't the safest place for us to be, of course, but the cot is a possibility.”

“I thought Riddle just used Harry's blood, didn't he? We got about five litres of that walking around.”

“Not in one sitting, we don't,” Hermione said dryly. “Riddle had a number of other reagents as well, Harry's blood was just the primary reactive. He could have used the blood of a different enemy and saved himself a lot of bother.”

Scott had rolled over onto his stomach, his words partially muffled by the cushion pressed into the corner of his mouth. “I just feel like, at this point, we shouldn't be expecting him to have thought anything through.”

Hermione was still worried by the thought that Riddle was simply so far ahead of them that his logic, or even the lack thereof, would never be apparent until it was too late. “Whatever the case, keep in mind our need for an artefact. I'll try to be more specific after I do some more reading.”

Scott suddenly pushed himself upright. “Holy shit, I forgot about the thing!”

“What?”

“The thing! The thing I took, Dumbledore told me— hold on. SOPHIE?” he bellowed towards the door.

“Scott!” Hermione squawked indignantly, sheltering her abused ears. “Just go and find her! Or I'll do it, if you're still wobbly.”

“Wobbly?!” Scott said in an outraged tone. He jumped to his feet and began to stride for the door. “We'll see who's— fuck me—”

His right knee promptly folded under his weight, sending him sagging back into the settee. Hermione crossed her legs and watched impassively as he floundered against the cushions, unable to straighten his limb again without ending up on his bad knee.

Sophie's head of carefully coiffed curls poked into the room. “Scott? Did you call me, you really shouldn't scream like… What are you doing?”

“I think it's pretty obvious that I'm humping the couch,” Scott said, in a position that did encourage that conclusion.

Sophie's eyes narrowed. “What are you really doing?”

Scott sighed into the fabric. “My knee gave out. Hermione is watching me suffer.”

“I don't get to do it often enough,” Hermione said, entirely unrepentant.

“Hermione!” Sophie rebuked, sending a disappointed glance Hermione's way.

“It's his own fault, I offered to help,” Hermione informed her.

“Yeah, but you didn't mean it,” Scott said.

“You don't know that. Come on, just lock your knees and you can lean on me,” Sophie said, beginning to haul Scott to his feet.

“I don't need to get up, I need you to find my pants,” Scott told her, falling back against the settee after being faced the proper way.

Sophie looked down at his trousers. “Scott, are you feeling dizzy at all?”

“I'm not sundowning, I need you to find the pair of pants I was wearing when the Horcrux conked me out,” Scott said impatiently.

“Oh. I think those are with the rest of the laundry pile, I've just been so busy it's kind of been building,” Sophie explained.

“Or, you know, maybe it's because you hate doing laundry.”

“Then you do it!”

“No.”

“Scott, what's so important about those trousers?” Hermione interrupted.

“There's nothing special about the trousers. It's what's in them that's special,” he answered.

“Scott Middle-Name Kharan, you are so filthy, you never should have been allowed to work with young Primes,” Sophie disapprovingly declared.

Scott sputtered in disbelief. “Jesus, Sophie, I wasn't talking about my dick! That's on you, that is on _you!”_

“Don't you swear at me!”

“What is it that you had, Scott?” Hermione called over their burgeoning argument.

He rolled his eyes at Sophie and turned to Hermione. “I took Dumbledore's wand from his grave.”

Hermione at first thought she had misheard. “I'm sorry, you what?”

“I broke into Dumbledore's tomb and took his wand.”

Scott had done a number of things over the past year that she had found at least moderately reprehensible. But, over time, she had ceased being as appalled as she would have once been — right up until he nonchalantly told her that he'd violated Albus Dumbledore's grave.

“Why would you do that?” she said faintly.

“Because he told me to.”

That was probably the only thing Scott could have said to bring her building outrage to a sudden halt. “His portrait?”  
  
Scott nodded. “Yeah. Apparently it's important. To someone, anyway, the way he said it made it sound like it might not be useful to us, but I don't know.”

“I guess I should go find it, then,” Sophie commented as she left the room.

Hermione mulled over what Scott had said. “A wand is of limited use in any hands other than its owner's. Possessing Dumbledore's wand won't make us as powerful as he was, that's not how magic works. But, he wanted us to have it…”

“He said it was a 'Deathly Hallow', if that makes any difference,” Scott told her offhandedly.

Hermione gaped at him, feeling faint again. “That's impossible.”

“Okay,” Scott said slowly. “But, I mean, it was Dumbledore who told me that, so, I figure that rates at least a 'possible', if not 'probable'.”

“The Deathly Hallows are a fairy tale, a children's story. It's actually in the collection, which… Dumbledore left to me…” Hermione said, eyes widening once more.

“I like watching you realise things,” Scott said with a smarmy grin.

“If the Hallows are real… Did he intend for us to seek them out?” Hermione wondered, ignoring Scott. “No… No, if he'd wanted us to do so then that would have been the mission, the Horcruxes have always been our first priority.”

“Why would we go after these things, anyway? What do they do?”

“Supposedly the person who unites all of the Hallows becomes the 'Master of Death'. What, precisely, that means is not explained. I can think of several interpretations.”

“Sounds like bullshit,” Scott said summarily. “Death isn't something you master, it's a concept. More or less a term we use to indicate the state of electrical activity within an organic form.”

“That's a very literal, agnostical use of the word, one I'm not sure is appropriate in a world of magic and spirits,” Hermione cautioned.

Scott was unimpressed by her argument. “The shape provides all of those things, which are nothing but local shape manifestations. 'Death' may be impermanent depending on the form in question, but it's still shorthand for the same organic state, temporary or not.”

Hermione looked at him with exasperation. “You're arguing mere semantics. If you were dead, but not really dead, then what would you call that state?”

“We have a few different words for it, but that's not the point.”

“Agreed. I'd thought you missed the point entirely.”

Scott made a face at her, then said, “Riddle has found his own way to 'master' death, and if we assume that the Hallows do something similar then it's all just a way of delaying the inevitable, and not particularly useful to us. If you guys want to try to live forever, then do it after we've finished the rest of this shit. Even if these things make you immortal, they obviously don't make you invincible, otherwise whoever had them first would still be around.”

“If we consider mastering death to be the same as avoiding it, then that seems likely. It's the other possibilities that I find more concerning. A 'Master of Death' might be one who inflicts death upon others, for example,” Hermione reasoned.

“You don't even need magic for that.”

“No, but there are degrees of effectiveness.”

Scott arched an eyebrow. “Have something to say about my performance, Hermione?”

She rolled her eyes. “As much as we've differed on the topic, even I'm aware that killing is only a portion of your job description. Also, I seem to recall you staggering back here in quite a state after being chased out of the Hollow, so perhaps it's that other majority where your real talents lie.”

 _“Ouch,”_ Scott breathed, but his eyes were alight with humour. “You want my balls now, or should I shave them first?”

“I want nothing to do with them.” Feeling a surge of comradeship, Hermione then said something that she wouldn't have even thought a year before. “I've yet to be acquainted with Ron's.”

Scott laughed so hard that Hermione was momentarily worried he might hurt himself, infirm as he still was.

Sophie re-entered the room with a startled look on her face. “Oh, what's funny?” she inquired.

Hermione wasn't willing to repeat it. “Who knows with him. Did you find the wand?”

“I couldn't find it at first because it rolled under the ottoman since the stupid basket has slats,” Sophie explained unnecessarily. “But here you go. It's a fancy wand, it seems nice.”

It was something a step beyond the usual wand, which were traditionally without much in the way of adornment. Still, despite its appearance Hermione couldn't divine anything special about it. It didn't fill her with a surge of power or strike her as portentous.

Scott rolled one of his hands at her in a 'get on with it' gesture. “All right, so blow up the room or whatever. Make it work.”

“It's not my wand,” Hermione murmured, turning it over in her grip. “Wands give their allegiance only once.”

“But what's so great about it? I mean, if you had the other Hallows I guess it's great, but what about by itself?”

“Supposedly, the owner of the Elder Wand cannot be defeated.” Hermione felt a pang of sadness. “We have strong evidence that is not the case.”

“Yeah. So if that's not true, maybe none of it is.”

Hermione thought that might be a dangerous assumption. “I know Dumbledore was not infallible, but if he thought this was a Deathly Hallow, I have to believe he had compelling evidence.”

“I'm with you,” Scott said mildly. “Just thinking out loud. What it sounds like, though, is that this wand does something — just not for us.”

“Perhaps Dumbledore only wanted us to hide it. What other reason could there be? The Elder Wand isn't attuned to any of us, it serves no purpose for us to have it unless we're only meant to keep it safe.”

“Maybe this thing has enough juice that it'll give you a boost even if it's not actually yours.”

“I suppose… If Dumbledore was buried with this, then he was actually using it. It must have worked for him.”

“Well, like I just said, what if it's got sufficient kick that it works as well as a normal wand even though it's not 'attuned' or whatever?”

“Then it's merely a curiosity, a collectable, not an advantage.”

“Except as a piece for a larger puzzle,” Scott pointed out.

“I wish he had been clearer about this,” Hermione said with frustration.

“We sort of ran out of time. Had a lot of Horcrux details to hash out first. Which makes me think that this 'Hallows' dealie really isn't that big of a thing, to us. He was set on telling me about Harry's situation and making sure we were counting our Horcruxes.”

“His grave would have been vulnerable now that Hogwarts is in enemy hands. I don't know who else might have known that his wand is a Hallow, but the school wouldn't be a safe place for it,” Hermione agreed.

“Maybe we should destroy it.”

Hermione looked at him, startled. “What? It's a priceless piece of magical history!”

“Oh, it's history now? Because a minute ago it was a myth.”

“Don't be difficult. If we have to hide it, then we'll put it somewhere safe and that will be that,” Hermione said with finality.

“What are our odds of finding the other two?”

“Considering that I had no evidence they were even real prior to this afternoon, I would say very slim, indeed.”

Scott didn't appear too upset about it. “Oh well. Not like we don't have some other things to find.”

“Yes, and we should keep at that whilst we're recovering,” Hermione added.

“Yeah, you keep trucking on the whole problem with Harry. I'm going to put in some work on Gringotts,” Scott told her. “I've got a few ideas.”

“That sounds promising,” Hermione said, cautiously optimistic.

“I know our first goal is to get the Horcrux out of there, but our secondary objective needs to be getting it without Riddle knowing it's gone. I've considered manufacturing a fake, if we can find out exactly what the original looks like; that only works if Lestrange checks on her vault after we break in, though, and not Riddle. We should still have a ringer, but just for insurance.”

“Then what do you propose?”

“I looked at the book Dumbledore gave me, and I think our best bet is to go two teams.”

“For what purpose?”

“So we can do two things at once. I know everyone's personal vaults are down off the rails, but there's a hell of a lot of money in the main building, most of it in two large vaults just off the counting rooms. That's where all the dosh makes a stop on its way to the personals or people's pockets.”

Hermione frowned. “We're not in this for the money.”

“No, but they don't know that. Turns out, it's true that Gringotts has never been successfully robbed, but that's because no one has managed to escape. In the mid 1800s a professional crew with a tight time table grabbed a good amount of loose change from the lobby and even made it out to the street, but an Anti-Apparition field went up before they could split and get out. They caught the last guy three days later in Knockturn after the government and the goblins locked down the whole damn Alley.”

“None of which bodes well for us,” Hermione said, her hope fading.

“Actually, it does, because those guys did the best anyone ever has, and they weren't equipped for that kind of job. All their previous runs had been silent. Once they figured out there wasn't much chance of getting into Gringotts without being seen, they went for speed. But that wasn't their stock in trade, and they didn't have the kind of firepower you'd need to shoot your way out.”

“Neither do we…” Hermione frowned slightly, not sure how any of Scott's information was useful. They had no intention of stealing coin from the lobby, and if they had to fight their way out then their Horcrux theft could easily be discovered.

“Maybe, maybe not, but ultimately all we have to do is _hold_ the lobby.”

Hermione still wasn't sure where he was going with his ideas, but she was willing to listen to anything approaching a real plan. “Then let's hear it,” she said.

Scott's eyes were alight with excitement. “This is preliminary, but the gist of it is this: we disguise the first team with Polyjuice. You walk right into the front of the bank and mix with the other customers, working your way towards a tunnel entrance. Once you're in place, me and Lil mask up and come in full bore with body armour, high calibre weaponry, as much ammo as we can carry. We do our thing: flashbangs, tear gas, scare the shit out of everybody, zipties and pistol whippings for the uncooperative. While we're going shock and awe, you get into the tunnels and head for the vault. You break into the vault, you take the Horcrux, you put a fake one in its place, you get out of the vault, you restore the protections on the door, you come back to the lobby. Me and Lil will have been popping rounds out at the street and threatening hostages to make everyone keep a healthy distance. Once you're back with the goods, we start moving people, mixing you in. We let everyone loose at the same time, you run out with them. Me and Lil come out right behind you with guns blazing. You guys split up—” Scott made a 'poof' gesture with his hands, “—and disappear.”

Hermione was momentarily at a loss for words, attempting to grapple with the unexpected intricacy of the plan as much as she was its incredible audacity. “But then how do you and Lila escape?” she asked, believing that to be a missing step.

“Not sure. Worst case is we shoot until we make enough room to get into the streets, we're going to be faster on foot than the opposition. Maybe we can find somewhere inside to hide until things calm down enough to make an aperture.” He paused, face thoughtful. “Well, probably not. It's going to be nuts around there for quite awhile. But if we can get to Muggle London, we shouldn't have any trouble past that point.”

It took Hermione a few more seconds to collect her thoughts (and organise her objections). She had come to Scott intending to do nothing but listen to what she had assumed would be ramblings of minor importance, if any, and so was still mentally fatigued. She knew that Scott's plan would be revisited, so at least she wasn't feeling the need to fully examine every angle of it right away.

“I think your plan sounds very impressive,” she tentatively acknowledged, “though I am concerned by how many different things are required.”

Scott nodded soberly. “Simpler is better, but everything I've read about Gringotts is telling me that we need to be complicated. If we didn't have to include any misdirection then it maybe we could stealth our way in with Bill's help and a little luck, but the requirement is that Riddle doesn't find out we were in Lestrange's vault. All I can offer is my opinion, obviously, but I'm telling you this: I don't think we can get to the vault, get into the vault, and then get out of the bank without someone noticing — unless everyone is looking elsewhere.”

Hermione couldn't argue with that. The task had seemed nearly insurmountable even without the necessity of stealth. “You may be right. But, your plan also puts you and your sister in a very bad situation.”

“Yeah, but the same is true for you. And I've been in pretty similar ones before, so if anything I'd say you'll have it worse.”

Hermione was having difficulty imagining a worse situation than being in the middle of a hostage situation surrounded by the forces of a corrupted Ministry. Which brought her to the next salient point. “You keep talking about shooting your way out… You are aware that not everyone opposing you will be a Death Eater?”

From his lack of reaction, it seemed that Scott had anticipated her objection. “We have to get the cup. I don't really like the expression 'failure is not an option' because technically that's never true, but if I had to use it somewhere, it would probably be here. I knew you weren't going to like the risks to bystanders, but I can't jeopardise the mission because I couldn't shoot back at some good people taking bad orders.” He shrugged fatalistically. “That's the nature of war, Hermione. You've become used to your enemies being almost literal monsters, but typically that's just not the case.”

“Perhaps not,” Hermione allowed, “but you can't expect me to say nothing when you start talking about hostages and shooting at law enforcement!”

“And I suppose you think every Snatcher I shot was an adult male serial rapist with no friends or family?”

“That's not…” Hermione paused to glare at him for putting words in her mouth. “…What I'm saying. I'm saying your attitude strikes me as careless when we should be doing our best to save everyone we can.”

“That is precisely what we are doing. And we can't let anyone stop us, whether it's because they genuinely oppose us or because they just don't know any better.”

“I would be less hesitant to agree if you weren't advancing a course of action that would bring the same response whether Riddle was in control or not,” Hermione said. “Armed robbery isn't exactly the sort of thing where only the evil or misguided attempt to intervene.”

“No, but that's part of the reason it suits our purposes so well.” Scott's expression indicated he was aware of how unfortunate the necessity was. “No one is going to connect that to Harry.”

Hermione thought that was probably true, though it made her think of what such a robbery might be connected with instead. “Aren't you worried that assaulting Gringotts with firearms will only give Riddle more cause to hurt the Muggles? There must be people at least partially convinced by the propaganda, if they weren't predisposed against Muggles already. Such an act could very well cause them to sympathise with Death Eater terrorism.”

Scott tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Yes. But two things: first, this in Diagon Alley. Muggles can't go there, at all, so if anyone is robbing a wizarding bank, it's wizards.”

“More or less,” Hermione said wryly.

“Hey, I got a wand! And, two: they're already going after Muggles. All the 'accidents', disappearances, sudden jumps in unsolved violent crime — hardly a coincidence. Riddle has removed Ministry control and now he's unleashing his people as he sees fit. So whatever we do, it's happening anyway.”

“But it could get worse.”

“It's all going to get worse before it gets better,” Scott said levelly.

“You always know just what to say,” Hermione sighed.

“Come on, you're the realistic one. I don't think I've said anything so far you didn't already know, barring my whole plan, which is my invention. Patent pending.”

Hermione carefully squeezed her eyes shut, fighting a sudden headache. “We'll discuss this again later, all right? I can't dissect it all right now.”

“Yeah! I knew it was an awesome plan. Hey, Sophie, I broke Hermione's brain!” Scott said triumphantly.

“Okay, Scott,” Sophie said absently, startling Hermione. The Kharadjai woman had apparently been quietly dusting shelves during the entire conversation.

“I'm going to go eat, now,” Hermione announced. She stood and offered a hand to Scott. “Are you hungry?”

She had made the gesture more out of politeness than the expectation he would need it, but Scott actually took her hand and hauled himself to his feet, forcing her to grip his arm with her other hand and lean against his weight. “Sure. Kylie took my string cheese.”

“You should take a nap, too!” Sophie called after them as they left the room.

“Was she talking to you, or me?” Scott wondered as they went down the hall.

“Both of us, perhaps. She did tell me to rest my eyes, earlier,” Hermione said.

“Oh, yeah? Did she tell you they would get crispy and gross?”

Hermione giggled into her hand, throwing a guilty glance back towards the door. “She did!”

“What is _up_ with that? I don't know if her mom used to say it or what, she acts like it's just something you say and it totally isn't—”


	32. Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard

**32**

**Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard**

\--- 

_“Every plan created with immediate determination  
_ _increases the probability of immediate termination.”_

_—_ Oritorius Arthur Eamon Grant

\---

**Two Weeks Ago**

“…and then we scatter,” Scott said. He slapped down the piece of chalk he had been using to illustrate his plan with an emphasising clatter.

“Audacious,” Hermione said into the silence that followed. She had the advantage of having heard the plan already, and therefore wasn't as stunned as the others.

“I was thinking 'insane', but I guess we could go with audacious,” Ron said.

Ginny's eyes were wide. “I don't… Could that work? What if Bill can't help us?”

“Then we'll have to find another way. Really, the second half of the plan hinges on Sophie being able to open the door without making it obvious we were there. Only Bill can teach her what she needs to know,” Hermione said.

“Sorry, am I the only one stuck on the part where we take over Gringotts?” Ron said incredulously.

“That's not the part you need to worry about,” Lila told him.

“Or, maybe it is,” Scott countered. “That's a lot of people going downstairs and just two of us to hold the lobby.”

“Scott, you can't put your Primes up there!” Sophie protested.

Ron appeared slightly insulted. “I'm just saying it's mental, I didn't say I couldn't do it.”

“No, she's right,” Scott conceded. “That's not a job for anyone who isn't trained for it. You guys have made good progress for beginners, but we gotta control that room and we gotta do it fast.”

Hermione placed a hand on Ron's wrist and leaned in closer to him. “They're going to have to be _very_ unpleasant to do what they need to,” she said quietly.

“It's a full-on close-quarters assault followed by a hostage siege. That isn't something we can leave to amateurs,” Lila said with a tone of finality.

Harry, meanwhile, had been silent, face creased in thought. “Scott, you really believe we can pull this off?” he said.

Scott nodded. “It's a classic blitz-as-distraction. The core of it is simple; the tricky parts are due to our need to keep this from Riddle.”

Harry's expression turned decisive. “What do we need to make this work?”

Scott turned back to the old, pitted chalkboard he had found in the attic. He wrote a number one, with 'BILL' next to it. “One: we learn everything we can from Bill. Two: we get Sophie access to another vault, one as similar to what Lestrange has as possible. So we'll have to talk to someone, probably the Order, and see who has a vault down there that Sophie can visit. Three: we're going to need to source some Polyjuice targets, one for each of you. Random people will be fine. Four: we'll need some weaponry and equipment, that'll be up to me and Lil. Five: and this is a big one — we have to know where Lestrange's vault is. If Bill can tell us or knows where we can find that information inside the bank, great. If not, we need another solution.”

“Trevor's mother works at Gringotts,” Lila said. “Could be a possible informant.”

“Talk to her. Six: everyone needs to know the layout of the city around the bank and have designated places to regroup. So we'll need some maps.”

“I have an atlas or two, they might be sufficient,” Hermione said. “Also, we'll need to 'source' the ingredients for Polyjuice, or even a stock of it. If we have to make it, that will require a month's time.”

“Okay, and seven: we need to source a decoy cup. I don't have any specific solutions for that, maybe you guys would know some magic that could help.”

“Why don't we just Transfigure something once we're there?” Ginny suggested.

“Can we do that?” Scott asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Scott, you spent most of a year at Hogwarts. Have you forgotten everything already?”

“Uh, I'm pretty sure that wasn't covered. In which case it's your fault anyway, since I was using your notes.”

“My notes are very thorough,” she insisted.

“Yeah, but the level of detail with which you rendered the cartoon hearts surrounding 'Mrs Hermione Weasley' didn't really help me with revision—”

“That was _not_ in there!”

“How do you guys get anything done with those two in the room?” Lila asked Ginny whilst Scott made a grinning retort to Hermione.

“We make them stop if it's important. Or it's a good time to leave without them noticing,” Ginny said.

Ron and Harry had approached the chalkboard, looking apprehensively at the listed tasks.

“Mate, I know nothing's really been the same since fifth year. And Scott showing up isn't even all of it,” Ron said uneasily as he stared at the board, “but this is like something from my comics.”

“I know. Remember how we just ran off to the Ministry? Seems so stupid. It _was_ stupid,” Harry said with self-recrimination. “We make plans, now. And we have to do this, we have to get that cup.”

“I just think we might be in over our heads. More than usual, I mean,” Ron amended.

“I don't know if we can afford to think like that anymore,” Harry said quietly. “I wish as much as you do that we were just trying to catch a key with wings, but this is how it is. We make real plans and we get into real fights.”

“We aren't fucking about, that's for sure,” Ron said.

“Okay,” Scott said loudly, regaining everyone's attention by rapping his knuckles on the chalkboard. “So we're clear on this? I mean, for now — there's still a lot of planning to do. But this is the basic outline of my plan, patent pending, patent pending,” he said, pointing to Hermione and Harry in turn.

“This is also the moment to suggest any alternatives,” Lila said.

The room fell silent as they all looked at each other, waiting for someone to speak. Eventually, all gazes turned to Hermione.

Her cheeks pinked slightly under the scrutiny. “Well, just all look at me, then!” she said defensively.

“Come on, like that doesn't make sense,” Scott said.

She sighed. “I don't have an alternative. The best option I could think of involved using Polyjuice to disguise one of us as Bellatrix herself, and there are obvious problems with that, not limited to the fact that we have no idea where she is. She could easily find out that someone visited her vault in her stead, which would probably lead Riddle to discover his Horcrux missing. All similar possibilities have the same issue. I realise that Scott's distraction has some complications, but it's absolutely necessary if we are to enter and leave undetected.”

“If Bill can offer us a different way, then we can switch to that, but until we talk to him we don't know for sure,” Scott added.

“How the hell did Quirrell do it?” Harry suddenly wondered out loud.

Hermione shook her head. “I don't know, but his entry was discovered and they also knew what vault he tried to break into.”

Harry nodded. “So we need to do better than him.”

“We have the advantage of more people, certainly. And I doubt he had an inside source.”

“I think Ginny and I will talk to Bill. We're familiar faces and it will give me a chance to trade some information with him, integrate a little better,” Lila reasoned.

Ginny spoke up. “What about Harry?” she said with a concerned frown.

“I'm still working on that,” Hermione said immediately.

“Yeah, Harry's, uh, thing,” Scott said indelicately. “We're not forgetting about it.”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “If we can take care of it before this, that'd be brilliant, but we should get started. That's a lot to get ready.”

“We aren't at full strength yet. I know we're still hurting from the last one,” Scott continued. “This is gonna take a while, though. We can't rush this. By the time we're ready, we'll be fine.”

“And then we make a withdrawal,” Harry said grimly.

“Oooh, I got chills when you said that,” Scott said happily. “Good timing. I hope the camera zoomed in on you, all dramatic and shit.”

“That was a scene break if I ever heard one,” Lila said.

***---~**~---*** 

**Now**

Ginny glanced nervously over her shoulder, feeling exposed. The park was largely devoid of other people, but after so much time spent either inside Grimmauld or in too much danger to think about things, she found herself uncomfortable with waiting out in the open. She knew the Cloak she was wearing made her invisible, but she didn't _feel_ invisible.

Sophie, meanwhile, was taking deep breaths with her eyes closed, apparently enjoying the last remnants of summer air as autumn began to sweep in. Ginny enjoyed the smells of the park as much as anyone, especially in contrast to the pervading mustiness of Grimmauld Place, but she sort of wished Sophie would keep her eyes open.

“Mmm, smells like home,” Sophie said, eyes fluttering open. “On Veccia, I mean. It would probably smell like my house if we were at the sea.”

“Are they late?” Ginny asked, too tense to be interested in Sophie's home life.

“Only by a little. It's probably just traffic,” Sophie assured her. A gust of wind brought with it a heavy stench of exhaust, and Sophie wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. Well, it smelled like home before _that.”_

Ginny watched the cars on the nearby streets. Most of them looked the same to her, all dark colours and shiny carapaces. Only a few stood out, and she sort of doubted that Lila would have one that was noticeable. Ever since a parked car had helped lead the way out of the Hollow, Ginny had been trying to create her own landmarks. Hence her preoccupation with the vehicles, and her frustration that so many seemed identical.

“I think that's them,” Sophie said.

“Where?” Ginny asked.

“It's the black car over there, I'm pretty sure,” Sophie replied, nodding to her right.

The car drove past the park without stopping, disappearing around the nearby turn.

“Or not. Oh, I bet that's them!”

The second black car pulled to a stop in the small nearby lot, and Ginny could see Lila's blonde ponytail through the side window.

Ginny mentally went over what she had already rehearsed. Knowing Lila, she had probably told Bill little, if anything, leaving Ginny free to approach her brother in her own fashion. She wanted Bill to lend his expertise, but not to know why he was doing so. Bill wasn't a moron, of course, he would know they were going to be doing something involving Gringotts; he just needed to think they wanted to get money out of Harry's vault or something else relatively innocuous. He'd probably put two and two together after Scott and Lila ended up all over the front page of the _Prophet,_ but hopefully not before then.

Bill approached them, wearing a curious expression. He stopped in front of Sophie, assessing her. “So are you the one with the answers? Because she,” he gestured over his shoulder towards Lila, “is not much for explanations.”

“You must be Bill,” Sophie said, extending her hand. “I'm Sophie, nice to meet you.”

“Bill Weasley,” he said, taking the offered appendage and pausing awkwardly whilst Sophie held it for longer than was standard. “And if Remus hadn't already taken the trip, I wouldn't be here. What's this about?”

“We need your help with something,” Sophie told him.

“The Order has its hands full, at the moment, as I'd reckon you've heard,” Bill said.

“She didn't say the Order, she said _you_ , you great gangly prat,” Ginny retorted.

Bill spun towards the sound of her voice. “…Ginny?” he said slowly, examining the nearby trees.

“What'd you give me for my tenth birthday?” Ginny said without preamble.

“Harpies robes, though they were a bit big,” Bill answered immediately.

Ginny grinned, even though he couldn't see it. “When we were in Egypt, what did I help you do that Mum about cursed us for?”

Bill's face lit in an answering grin. “We filled every pair of the twins' shoes with sand. And then I charmed them so they kept refilling.”

“And who's your favourite sister?”

“Trick question: it's Charlie,” Bill sniggered.

“He never thought that was very funny,” Ginny noted, throwing her invisible arms around her brother. He froze in surprise at first before awkwardly returning the hug.

“Touching,” Lila said, though her tone wasn't quite as sarcastic as her comment indicated. “Let's take a walk.”

“This way!” Sophie chimed, leading them down the path.

“Hang on,” Ginny said to her brother. She lifted up the Cloak and indicated that he should get under it with her. “You'll have to duck down a fair bit.”

Bill managed to slip underneath with her, though he was almost comically hunched over to avoid revealing his ankles. “Have there been Death Eaters about?”

“Not that we've seen, but our hair is a bit too recognisable right now,” Ginny said.

It was at Hermione's suggestion that both Weasleys would be under the Cloak; although no one had spotted any obvious Death Eaters outside, she had pointed out that 12 Grimmauld Place had been left to Harry in Sirius' will, and wills were registered with the Ministry. That probably meant nothing, given the way the Fidelius was understood to work, but after some discussion it had been decided that Remus' safe arrival wasn't proof enough the location wasn't being watched. He was much more nondescript from a distance than a Weasley would be with their signature hair colour, and had been with Sophie, whose presence might have caused any observers to overlook them as a Muggle couple.

“I'll wager we're going somewhere I've been before,” Bill said to Ginny as they followed Sophie.

“How much of it do you remember?” Ginny inquired.

“Bits and pieces, mostly. The overall colour of the place, the other people who were there.” He shook his head wonderingly. “I have to admit, I'm _damn_ curious as to how you lot altered a Fidelius like that.”

“Don't ask me, I didn't do it,” Ginny said truthfully.

“You should still pay attention, Gin. Something like that could be important, you never know what you might learn,” Bill said reproachfully.

Ginny rolled her eyes. It was something she was used to hearing from Bill, who had often tried to impart some of his curse-breaking mind-set to his family. But she didn't have to take it this time, as it wasn't applicable. “It wasn't something I _could_ pay attention to.”

Bill frowned. “They wouldn't let you in on it?”

“They couldn't let me in on it. It doesn't matter, that's not why you're here,” she told him.

“It doesn't _matter?”_ he said incredulously. “Do you have any idea how unprecedented it is?”

She didn't, but, as she'd said, it was irrelevant. “Just don't waste your time asking about it, nobody can tell you anything,” she said, letting him interpret that however he wished.

The walk passed without incident save for a moment when Lila stiffened and locked eyes with a man coming the opposite way down the street, someone she apparently felt was suspicious. He looked like an entirely ordinary Muggle to Ginny, though when he met Lila's eyes he didn't look away, which was perhaps slightly unusual given the warning she was projecting.

The man passed them without comment, and Lila relaxed.

“What was that about?” Ginny said quietly to her. “Is he a Death Eater?”

“No. He was a threat, but not to us,” Lila told her.

When Lila failed to explain any further, Sophie leaned in closer to Ginny and whispered, “He had a gun in his pants.”

“Oh. Probably not a Death Eater, then,” Ginny assumed.

When they reached Number 12, Ginny handed Bill the piece of paper she had brought.

He glanced down at it. “Is there supposed to be something on this?”

“Er— yeah. Sorry,” Ginny said, embarrassed. She'd forgotten that the paper was blank, as she hadn't wanted to prepare it beforehand in case it were lost. She snatched it back from Bill and quickly wrote the necessary words with the pen Sophie had loaned her.

She watched with amusement as Bill's eyes grew wide, memories rushing back in an instant. “Grimmauld Place, of course,” he said. When they stepped inside, his eyebrows raised slightly. “I remember it being darker,” he commented.

“I've done a little cleaning, here and there,” Sophie said coyly.

Taking the hint, Bill proceeded to compliment every dust-free corner and grime-less stretch of wall on the way to the kitchen, much to Sophie's obvious delight. Ginny rolled her eyes whilst she folded the Cloak in her arms. Married or not, Bill clearly hadn't lost his way with women. At least now Ginny knew it wouldn't go any further than some friendly compliments. Bill's rotating stable of girlfriends had once been something of a standing joke at The Burrow. Ginny sort of doubted that Sophie would have been receptive, though.

Of course, Lila would have been more Bill's type. Ginny almost regretted that he had recently married. She would have liked to see him attempt some of his tried and true advances on Lila — the blonde woman's rebuffs would have probably been hilarious. Lila was not as aggressive as Scott when it came to mockery, friendly or otherwise, but could sometimes be even sharper with her words.

“And this is the kitchen, which is all rearranged. So let me know if you can't find something, I've organised everything,” Sophie preened.

“Very nice. It looks much better than before,” Bill said, earning himself another beaming smile.

“Don't encourage her,” Lila told him.

Sophie gave her friend a reproachful glance. “It's nice to have _somebody_ appreciate how the kitchen isn't gross anymore!”

“Yeah, but you're really eating it up, to the point that I'm starting to feel sorry for you. If you're that starved for attention, take your bra off and go talk to Scott.”

Sophie immediately turned to Bill. “I apologise for her, she's not good with people.”

“Don't apologise for me,” Lila said curtly.

“Then don't say things in front of our guest that I have to apologise for!” Sophie retorted.

“What do you mean, I'm not 'good with people'? I'm working with the Order, that's more people than you're with,” Lila challenged.

“I could work where you are!” Sophie turned away from Lila. “I am _so_ sorry,” she said to Bill.

“That's all right,” Bill said, beginning to look uncomfortable.

“I hope Lil hasn't been this difficult back where you've been staying,” Sophie sighed.

Bill's eyes darted to Lila. “Well—”

“You just put him on the spot,” Lila stated. “Now who's not good with people?”

Sophie drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't especially impressive (Ginny could relate). “Lila, if you don't stop being so rude—”

“You'll ban me from your OCD-organised kitchen?”

“I just might!” Sophie countered.

Ginny decided that had gone on long enough. “Hey!” she said loudly, cutting into their argument. “Did you forget what we're supposed to be doing? Do you have to do this here?”

Sophie's expression immediately became contrite. “I am so—”

“Sorry, we get it,” Lila finished. She grabbed Sophie's wrist and hauled the smaller woman towards the stairs. “But we are, actually. We'll take this elsewhere.”

“Yes, good, go!” Ginny said exasperatedly as the two Kharadjai women left the room. “Bloody hell, I thought we were trying to work.”

Bill's face creased in concern. “What happened to your forehead?” he asked, seeing her bandage for the first time as her hair had shifted from sitting down.

“Hit it on the table,” she said shortly.

He clearly didn't believe her, but didn't press her further. She was glad that she'd changed the bandage again; if it had looked the way it had beforehand, Bill probably wouldn't have let it go. “I guess things aren't going that smoothly for you lot, either,” he said with a wry twist to his lips.

“Still better than you, probably. I heard you were at a cottage or something with the whole family packed in there,” Ginny said, shuddering at the thought.

“Some days are…” Bill trailed off. “Well, Order business isn't always unwelcome, if you catch my meaning.”

There had been an awful lot of drama at Grimmauld Place recently, Ginny reflected. That was sort of the nature of their mission, sometimes, but it didn't help how many bits of personal business seemed to come to the surface at inopportune times. She didn't even know what had just happened with Lila and Sophie. Of course, she'd never seen the two of them together prior to Lila's arrival at Grimmauld, so perhaps their squabbling was entirely ordinary.

“Yeah. Anyway, you're probably wondering why you're here,” Ginny said.

“It had crossed my mind.”

“You can't talk to anyone about this,” Ginny told him with absolute seriousness. “I mean it. Nobody in the Order. Not even Mum or Dad.”

Bill was perplexed. “Not the Order? If you don't want them to know, why did you…” Sudden understanding crossed his features. “This is about what Dumbledore wanted you to do.”

“Sort of,” Ginny hedged, “but I mean it. You can't tell anyone why you were here, ever. I need you to promise.”

Bill was looking at her as if he'd never seen her before. “You _are_ serious,” he marvelled.

“Bill, you have to promise,” she repeated, unwavering.

Slowly, he nodded his agreement. “All right, Ginny. I swear, not a word.”

Ginny leaned forward. “We need to know everything about Gringotts.”

“Everything?” Bill said with a short laugh. “That's a lot.”

She wasn't deterred. “How to get in, how to get out, spells on the vaults and inside, too. How many goblins are there in the lobby, how many downstairs, what kinds of traps are on the rails — everything.”

Bill's amusement vanished. “Ginny, if you're thinking about trying to get in there, don't. The goblins don't muck about with security, and nobody knows how it all works except for them. A lot of people have died without getting away with so much as a Knut.”

“You think we don't know that?” Ginny scoffed. “We have a plan, but we need your help.”

Bill shook his head. “I can't even get you past the front door. I'm a wanted man, my credentials aren't any good now.”

“Obviously,” Ginny said, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “But you still know how all the traps work, right?”

“Gin, even if you get in, you'll never get out. The second someone who isn't a Gringotts goblin or the owner does anything to one of those vaults, they'll close the place up like a fortress. What are you even trying to accomplish? If you need money, there are much easier ways—”

“All right, listen,” Ginny said abruptly. “I know you're worried, but the same reason I made you promise not to tell is the same reason I don't have time for this shite.” Bill's eyebrows shot up at her tone and language, but she continued, “We didn't bring you here to ask questions. We brought you to answer them.”

Bill's face set stubbornly. “I'm not going to help you commit suicide by goblin, Ginny.”

“Then you'll stand around whilst I do it!”

He paled slightly. “Are you serious?”

“Have you been using your arse for ears?” she asked, exasperated. “This is happening, all right? You can help us or you can refuse, but either way, it's going to happen.”

She decided not to mention how, seeing as they _needed_ his information, the others were counting on her to get him to cooperate.

He stared at her. “What are you after? What's _that_ important?”

She placed her hands flat on the table and met his eyes with all the gravity she could muster. “I can't tell you, and you can't talk about it. **At all.”**

She sat then and watched the short play of emotions on Bill's face: the slight anger at her attitude, the disbelief at her terms, the confusion at her demands and intent, the sadness that she wouldn't be honest with him. It hurt her, too; she just couldn't show it. She had felt close to Bill in the past, despite the years between them. They'd always got along well, he'd always encouraged her. Now she felt like she was simply using him, another tool for the war effort. She didn't like the way she looked in his eyes.

Finally, he sighed. “How can I send you there, Gin? Mum wanted me to talk to you about coming home. Did you know that? You probably guessed. How am I to tell her I let my baby sister run off on a suicide mission?”

“You can't tell her anything,” Ginny said, though her tone was more sad than harsh.

“Christ, Ginny.” Bill stared at her, jaw tight.

“Bill… I would really, really rather do this with your help. Really.”

He made a rueful face. “Just curious: how far would I make it if I grabbed you and ran for the door?”

“The stairs, probably,” Ginny hazarded, supposing that Lila was still near there.

Bill sighed. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “What do you need to know?”

“Everything, like I said,” Ginny told him. She unfolded a piece of parchment she'd had in her pocket. “But we'll start with this list.”

Bill only had about an hour and a half before he had to leave, but he'd given Ginny a wealth of information in that time and also promised to return as soon as he could. She made him repeat his promise not to talk before he left, and it was hard to say whether he was more amused or concerned. It was a far cry from their usual interactions, to be sure.

Once Bill had left, Ginny went upstairs to talk to the others. Last she'd seen them, they had all been intently poring over the books Dumbledore's portrait had given to Hermione.

She ran into Lila and Sophie, who had apparently been waiting in the hallway in case she needed them. They must have been dreadfully bored. “Have you finished with your row?” Ginny asked, still a bit put out by how they had acted in front of Bill.

“It's okay. I've forgiven Lila for using me,” Sophie said somewhat petulantly, looking away from the other woman.

“He cooperated?” Lila assumed.

“Yeah, and I think this will really help,” Ginny enthused, holding up the notes she had taken.

“May I?” Sophie requested, reaching for them. With the notes in hand she wandered away up the stairs, eyes darting over the words.

“Good, she can get started,” Lila said, watching her go.

“Are you still narked at her? Because she didn't look like she forgave you,” Ginny said.

“No, but I wasn't actually fighting and she was.” Lila noticed Ginny's puzzled expression and explained, “I pissed her off on purpose. I figured it might help if you got mad at us — I was hoping you'd tell us to cut it out or leave. That way Bill could see you as an equal to us, maybe even a superior, not just a kid tagging along with the adults. You were the one he needed to take seriously.”

Ginny couldn't help but be surprised, though she knew she really shouldn't have been. “You crafty old cow!” she said without thinking about it, and then winced when she realised what she'd just called her older friend. Lila wasn't one of the girls in the dorms.

“And don't forget it, you pocket ginger,” Lila said smoothly.

Ginny grinned widely, feeling an almost giddy sense of inclusion. Insults were like endearments in the army, weren't they? Scott called Harry and Ron just about every name in the book. Well, she and Lila could be mates, too.

“I should get back to the safehouse before they do something without me,” Lila said brusquely, glancing down at her watch. “Go see if they've made any progress up there.”

“Don't let Bill forget about coming back,” Ginny requested.

“I'll be sure to remind him.”

Ginny went to tell her friends that one piece of the puzzle they were assembling was ready to be put in its place. 

***---~**~---*** 

Neville hit the flagstones hard enough to bounce slightly, feeling the breath leave his lungs. He'd landed a bit flatter on his back than he would have liked and the compression left him gasping for air. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and pressed a fistful of his robes to his bleeding nose.

The punch to the face had been unexpected; a bit stupid of him, he thought regretfully. He'd been using the hallways beneath the Astronomy Tower as a secluded spot to meet Luna for the first couple weeks since the term had started. It had been apparent from day one that Hogwarts was no longer what it had been, and the two of them needed to be discreet if they were to be together — especially if they wanted to talk about Harry and the others.

It seemed like someone had twigged on. He didn't know if the two Slytherins standing over him were the ones who had followed him, but he doubted it. They were doing someone else's work, most likely the Carrows'. Neville didn't actually know either of the boys, outside of seeing them in the halls before. They weren't a part of Draco's old cadre.

Neither of them had said much of anything, content to wait for him to try and rise so they could continue to thrash him. They weren't even Prefects. Curfew was much more strictly enforced in Hogwarts — along with everything else — but the punishments often came from unofficial sources. The two Slytherins standing over Neville were delivering a message that didn't need to be explained.

Neville clenched his aching jaw and tried to think what Harry would do in the same situation. He'd probably Disarm the Slytherins and then Stun the hell out of them. But Neville needed his wand to do that, and it had flown out of his grasp and rolled out of reach when the fist connected with his face. Bit of bad luck, but that's what he got for thinking about Luna instead of watching the corners. So Harry's way wasn't of much use. What would _Scott_ do?

Neville thought he knew. Tired of waiting for Neville to get to his feet, the Slytherin on the right stepped forward and bent down to grab him by the collar. Neville dropped his elbows, reared back, and slammed his heel into the other boy's groin as hard as he could.

As the Slytherin collapsed with an agonised groan, Neville curled into a ball and protected his head, ready to take whatever retaliatory spell his second opponent was going to cast. Instead, he felt another thump against the floor.

Luna advanced down the hall with her wand drawn, silvery eyes assessing the Slytherin she had Stunned and the one retching whilst cupping himself. _“Stupefy!”_ she said, putting the still conscious boy out of his extreme misery.

“Brilliant timing, Luna,” Neville said thickly. He sat up and tried to mop some of the blood away from his face.

“They hurt you,” she replied gravely, taking in his battered visage.

“I think I paid him back,” he told her, glancing over at the Slytherin he'd hit in the stones.

Luna had an expression of disappointment. “Where are we to kiss now?” she wondered.

“We'll think of something,” he told her, already working on it even as he spoke. He was highly motivated. “We can't be here tonight, though.”

“Shall we write to Lila?”

He blinked, confused. “What? I mean, about what?”

Luna's eyes were wide and solemn, an emotion so unsuited to her features. “She said she would help us leave if things were bad.”

Neville had been tempted to take the woman up on the offer within a week of arriving at Hogwarts. Things had become very bad, indeed. But he knew he had a responsibility. “We have to watch things for Harry. You know that.”

She nodded her understanding, but her mouth turned downwards. “You're going to get hurt even worse. You're brave and strong and they'll hate you for it,” she murmured sadly.

He reached out to her, uncertain how to make things better. “No, I'll be…” he swallowed, stopping himself. He couldn't promise that he'd be fine. No one could. “I'll be careful.”

“If you were, you wouldn't be Neville,” she said, pressing herself close to him and wrapping her arms tightly around his back.

He suppressed a wince as she squeezed his new bruises, taking more than enough pleasure from the embrace to offset the pain. “You need to be careful, too. They know you, they know we're friends with Harry. We both need to be more careful.”

Neville feared far more for her than for himself. Whatever reprisals were visited on him were tempered by his family status as a wealthy pureblood from a long line of them. Traitor though he might be, he was still one of them. That common ground would only stretch so far, but he reckoned it might give him enough time to hide before they tried to kill him. Of course, should the full extent of his loyalties ever be revealed, there was no amount of prestige that could protect him.

Sometimes he wasn't sure whether it was lucky that the Death Eaters hadn't recognised him at the wedding, or if he would have preferred that they had; then he could have been out with Harry's group, doing the real work (whatever it was).

Luna looked up at him. “Would you like to meet at the greenhouse during lunch tomorrow?” she suggested.

Neville had standing permission from Professor Sprout to be in the greenhouse, which would give any excursion there at least the appearance of legitimacy. “All right, that should work. We'll talk more then.”

They reluctantly separated and went their different ways. Neville cast a few cleaning charms on his face and clothing to get rid of as much of the blood as possible. He stuck to the shadows, wishing he had one of those marvellous maps that Harry had brought during their midnight raid on the school. At least the Fat Lady wouldn't have anything to say when he arrived back at the Tower; she cared for the new regime as much as the rest of them did, and had lied to the Carrows several times about students coming in late.

The next morning Neville was moving stiffly as he climbed out of bed. He hobbled his way down to breakfast, keeping his face impassive to deflect any questions. Not that there were any. School hadn't been in session for long, but everyone understood how things worked, now. And Gryffindors were becoming more likely to look like they'd taken a beating every passing day. The bravest House was suffering for its defiance, and would continue to do so.

He was on his way to Charms — always a relief, as Flitwick still ran his class the way he was accustomed and was covertly sympathetic to student resistance — when a hand shot out from an adjoining corridor and pulled him aside.

He quickly drew his wand to defend himself, only to have it slapped back down. “Cut that out!” a girl's voice rebuked him.

His assailant was a lanky blonde girl who, despite her height, looked to be a first year. “What do you want?” he said rigidly.

She sighed and pushed her hair back behind her ears, holding it up in one hand like a ponytail. “What, did you get punched in the eyes, too?” she said with a flat accent.

He frowned. “What do you know about…” The way she was holding her hair made him pause. His gaze took in her features: a generous half-moon upper lip with a thinner lower lip, straight-edged nose with a rounded tip. Her eyes were a dove grey, but surprisingly sharp and— “Lila?!” he gaped.

“Was that so hard?” she said with her usual wry delivery, though her younger tone made it sound less sardonic and more like she was badly imitating an adult.

Neville looked around the hall to ensure no one had seen them; class was about to start, so the area was quickly emptying. “What are you doing here?” he whispered, baffled by her sudden appearance.

“Take this.” She dug into her school bag and withdrew a small, round red plastic case. “A little inconvenient, but it's what we have for now. Give this one to Luna.” She handed him a second plastic circle, this one coloured yellow.

He looked down at them. “But, what—”

“They're mirrors. Press right here to open them, then they click closed.” Lila took one of the mirrors from him, swiftly opened and shut it in demonstration, then put it in his hand with the other one. Into his empty hand, she placed a piece of paper, and closed his fist around it. “Put your wand on the mirror and say that phrase. Memorise it, and burn the paper. Got it?”

“Um, I think so,” he said, tucking the mirrors away. The sounds of footsteps in the main hall were diminishing. He knew he had about two minutes to get to the classroom before he would be late. Flitwick wouldn't care, not these days, but he already had more trouble coming without getting caught out in the hall.

Lila noticed his preoccupation. “Out of time,” she assessed. “Use a mirror tonight if you have somewhere safe to do it. We have questions.”

With that, she darted away from him and disappeared around the nearest corner. Neville was frozen in place for a moment, still not quite sure what had just happened, but soon followed her example.

He slipped into class at the very last possible second, taking his seat when Flitwick began to speak.

During the lesson, Seamus leaned over and whispered, “Who was that blonde you were with? Did Luna chuck you?”

“Huh?” Neville was briefly at a loss for words, having difficulty thinking of Lila as anyone he could be dating. “No, I… I don't know her, actually. She was just lost.” When Seamus looked sceptical, Neville added, “She's a first-year.”

Seamus still didn't seem entirely convinced, possibly due to Lila's height, but Neville's attention had turned elsewhere. He made sure the piece of paper was still concealed in his pocket — if he lost it, the mirrors would be useless. He'd memorise it, and make sure to show it to Luna at the first opportunity. She was far less forgetful than he was, after all. 

***---~**~---*** 

Every month, it was always the same.

It wasn't that Tonks hadn't tried; oh, she'd done that, well enough. Come damn close to begging, come to think of it. Never did her any good. All she wanted was to support Remus when he needed it the most, but there was some part of him — some stupid, stubborn part — that refused even the slight comfort she could offer. And why? Out of habit? Out of fear? She wasn't afraid of him. Never had been. She had thought that he finally understood, once they'd come together. But, no. The moon waxed, and he hid himself again.

The potion that he took kept him from losing his mind, she knew that. So maybe it was a bit too reckless to actually be there with him, fine, but she could sit outside the door and talk to him, couldn't she? So he could hear her, know that he wasn't alone. That she was waiting for the night to end, just as he was. Even the most rabid werewolf couldn't tear down a solid oak door. A bloody troll would have some trouble bashing through it. That was why he locked himself in there to begin with, because there was no way he could get out as a wolf, even if he'd wanted to.

None of that ever seemed to matter. She was banished, every full moon, with strict instructions not to come to him until the sun was fully risen. It wasn't as if she'd been passive about it, either, she'd got fed up and given him a good piece of her mind at least once. She'd pushed him far enough that he'd told her they couldn't see each other any more if she couldn't be trusted to stay away from him after transformation. She'd near told him to go fuck himself, but he'd wrangled a promise out of her eventually.

Thus far, she had kept it (if not gracefully). So it was she approached his remote place of refuge just past mid-September with breakfast in one hand and her wand in the other, ready to unlock the door for him. He was often so exhausted from the ordeal that he couldn't free himself until noon.

“Remus! I've got breakfast!” she called out as she entered the cabin, bumping the door closed behind her with her hip. “And some wax for your cross,” she muttered more quietly, setting the food down on the table.

She knew she would immediately feel terrible for saying that once she saw him pale and exhausted in his tiny cell. But it wasn't that she didn't appreciate what an awful burden he bore; she just wished he would let her ease it, even if only in a small way.

Remus didn't reply. He was never especially talkative the morning after the full moon and usually only picked at the food she brought, but he would at least assure her that he was, relatively, all right. Frowning, she made her way to the locked door, wondering if he'd let himself out a bit early.

“Remus?” She reached up and opened the slat at the top of the door, revealing the bars behind it. She'd never asked where he'd acquired such a sturdy prison-style door.

She was relieved to see him inside and in human form. He was sitting on the edge of his old cot, ragged blankets surrounding him. He had a very odd expression on his face as he stared at the wall, unresponsive.

“Are you all right, luv?” she ventured, trying to get his attention. “Rougher night than usual?”

“…No,” he said slowly.

She wasn't sure if she believed him. There were dark circles under his eyes, which was normal enough, but there was a tension in his posture that worried her. “Are you sure?” she hedged, hoping he would be honest with her.

When he met her eyes, the tumult she saw in his face stunned her. “I didn't change,” he said hoarsely.

She blinked, thinking she had misheard or perhaps misunderstood. “I didn't bring you any clothes, luv. Don't you have a change or two here?”

He stood then, walking over to the barred door. “Nymphadora,” he said, leaning in to look her directly in the eye, “I didn't change last night. The wolf never took me.”

Her mouth worked silently for a moment. “I thought there wasn't a cure,” she said dumbly.

“There isn't. My parents tried everything, took me to every self-proclaimed Healer they could find. Nothing ever works. I…” He lowered his head, gathering his thoughts. “Last night, I felt different even before it was time. But it's not always the same. I've felt better about it before, it can be easier some nights, but it never helps all that much. The moon came up and I braced myself, and… Nothing.” He looked up again, and she could see the wild hope he was fighting against. “I felt nothing at all. I sat there all night. Before you came in, I'd thought I might have even dreamed it.”

“What was it? What did you do, did you take something?” she urged him. If he'd discovered a cure…

“No! I haven't tried anything in years, I gave up long ago. I never eat or drink anything beforehand, you know that.”

“Well, _something_ must have happened, Remus! It doesn't just go away… Does it?”

“No one has ever been cured. My entire life I've been told that it's irreversible, and I've never seen a scrap of evidence to the contrary,” Remus said. “And no one ever misses a full moon. It doesn't come and go. It's been every month, every single time, since I was a boy.”

Tonks put forward the only theory she could think of. “Could the Wolfsbane have built up somehow, had some sort of side effect?”

Remus shook his head. “I don't see how. There are people who have been taking it longer and more regularly than me. It hasn't always been a— … available,” he said, scratching lightly at a deep scar along his collarbone as he momentarily lapsed into memory.

Tonks knew he'd been going to say, 'affordable'. “Then what do you think it is?”

“I don't know. And I… I can't…” He lowered his head again, throat flexing in agitation. “I can't trust in a miracle. It's—”

Tonks didn't know if she even believed in miracles, but she knew that she was tired of being separated from him. “Remus, can we do this without the door?” she interrupted.

“Of course,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed. He unlocked the door from his side and then had to take a step back to steady himself when she wrapped him in a fierce hug.

“Maybe we're both nutters and this is some sort of episode, maybe it won't last 'til next month,” she mumbled into his shoulder, “but I'm just dead chuffed you didn't have to turn last night.”

He held her tightly for long while, embracing her in the doorway to his private hell. Whether or not his reprieve was temporary, it was still more relief than he had been given in all his years of suffering. For that, Tonks was grateful.

“…I have had one thought,” he said, breaking the silence. “You recall that I visited Harry?”

“Right, when you went with Lila.”

“I don't have much reason to believe anything happened, but Harry did somehow manage to alter the Fidelius where he is.”

Tonks frowned, pulling back slightly. “How'd he manage that?”

“I never found out, which is why I thought of it. If he's been experimenting, then perhaps he or one of his friends did something whilst I was there.”

Tonks considered that, but it didn't seem quite right. “That doesn't sound like Harry, you think? He's a good bloke, I can't see him trying anything new on you without at least asking, first.”

“But what if he hadn't mean to?” Remus reasoned. “It might have been someone else in the house, or something left over.”

The last thing Tonks wanted to do was extinguish the unfamiliar hope in Remus' eyes; she wasn't willing to lie to him, though. “Remus… Lycanthropy has been studied for centuries. If some of the best minds in history couldn't find a spell or potion to reverse it, I just don't think a few students on the run could manage it,” she finished regretfully.

His jaw tightened. “I know. I don't believe it's at all likely, either. And if Harry had a cure, I'm certain he would have told me. But it's the only thing I can think of; I haven't been around anything else unusual.”

“It's worth a return visit, then,” Tonks said.

She wanted to encourage him, to feed the spark she had so rarely seen. Still, she dreaded the moment when the answers never came and the disease returned. Remus was one of the strongest people she'd ever known, but he had borne more than his share of disappointments. She feared this one could be a breaking point, to have been given hope, only to have it snatched away. In a way, it might be worse than simply living with his sickness. He'd done that for most of his life, without any expectation of an alternative.

“I'll write to him and ask if I can see him again soon,” Remus said.

“Well, not _too_ soon,” Tonks said gently. “I've come with a message, not just breakfast. Mad-Eye wants to see us all this afternoon. Sounds like we're up for another skirmish or some such.”

“Order business comes first, of course,” Remus said stoically.

She knew him too well to miss the flash of disappointment that crossed his face. “No worries, luv. We'll sort out whatever Mad-Eye's got for us quick enough. Maybe I won't cut up my mug this time, eh?”

“That would be preferable,” he said with a tired smile, looking down at her. “I've grown quite fond of it.”

She insisted that he at least try to eat something before they left, not wanting him to face a mission on an empty stomach. Whatever had happened the previous night, there wouldn't be time to think about it in the immediate future, it seemed. Regardless, she doubted it would ever be far from his mind.

***---~**~---*** 

The woman was perfect: late thirties or early forties, not too short, not too tall, average brown hair and eyes, average physique. She was perusing the cereal aisle, stopping to drop a box into her shopping trolley. Her hand suddenly flew to the back of her head and she looked backwards as if she expected someone to be there. After patting her hair several times with a slightly worried expression, she went back to the cereal.

Sophie felt a little bad for Summoning several hairs from the woman's head, but it was for a good cause. She placed the strands on a piece of tape and then folded it, tucking it into her pocket. That made three intentionally unremarkable people she had gathered hair from thus far. It was still uncertain how many of the team would be Polyjuiced for the mission, so Sophie would continue gathering until she had enough to be adaptable.

Before she left, she made sure to grab two bags of nacho chips so Scott and Ginny wouldn't wage another covert war for them. Being adaptable meant many things.

She returned to find Grimmauld Place much quieter than when she had left; the boys had ceased practising in the dining hall and had relocated elsewhere, most likely assisting Hermione. The clever girl's research had become more important than ever, extending to cover several vital avenues of inquiry. Everyone had stepped up to contribute, whether it was Harry and Ron breaking down the books into general sections for Hermione to interpret or Ginny copying and ordering important spells. Sophie herself was still in the process of developing their fledgling multi-disciplinary communication system, though much of that work had halted once the basic mirrors were complete in order to concentrate on Gringotts.

After putting her groceries away, Sophie went up to the drawing room. There, she found Scott standing in front of the mission board, deep in thought.

The mission board was a blank stretch of wall, formerly the home of the Black family tapestry. In its place were representations of all the information they had gathered thus far: pictures and maps and dozens of handwritten notes and sketches. Currently, Scott seemed to be focussed on the list of traps that Sophie had arranged under an old black and white photograph of the Gringotts rail system.

“Hey, you're back,” he said, turning briefly as she approached.

“Got another one!” she said, placing the hair she had taken into a container on a nearby shelf.

“Nicely done. So, I've been thinking about your field trip.” Scott pointed at the rail photo. “This 'Thief's Downfall' thing is gonna be a problem. Bill doesn't actually know how it works, only that it might be there.”

“Harry said it doesn't pour on everyone, I thought… It's not something they soak you with all the time,” Sophie said.

“No, but Bill said he's seen it on route to the lower, high-security vaults. It disrupts magic, somehow, and I'm guessing our Polyjuice is going to count.”

“I don't know if I'll be able to tell,” Sophie admitted. “On a fast rail with no experience, and probably a lot of other magic…”

“I know. It's a crapshoot.” Scott frowned at the board. “We need something else.”

“Like what?” Sophie ventured, hoping he already had an idea.

“Honestly? I was thinking a clear plastic tarp,” Scott said with a slight shrug.

Sophie thought that might actually be a great idea. Simple, utilitarian and likely effective. “I like it!” she proclaimed.

Scott stepped closer to the board and placed his finger on a different picture, this one of a stylised dragon that Hermione had copied from a bestiary. “Dragons are way resistant to magic, apparently, so we should get you a little something, just in case. M203, maybe, or an AT4.”

“I think a big dead dragon might be kind of obvious…”

“It's not a great solution,” Scott acknowledged. “We need to find out how the goblins get around the dragons.”

They were both distracted from their discussion when Harry barged through the door. “Nev just rang us on the mirror,” he told them.

“Faster than I expected,” Scott commented as he followed Harry back up to Hermione and Ron's room. Sophie was close behind, eager to see the mirrors she had helped develop being put to real use.

“No, you can only see me. Can you hear Ginny? You should be able to hear her,” Hermione was saying as they came in.

“I thought I did,” Neville's voice said from the mirror Hermione was holding.

“I'm here!” Ginny called into her own mirror. She was sitting against the headboard, only a few feet behind Hermione.

“Hello, Ginny,” Luna's dreamy voice said.

“Luna!” Ginny exclaimed, happy to hear from her friend. “Bugger, I can't see you, either.”

“It's a current limitation. Only the initial connection is visible, anyone else is audible,” Hermione explained with a touch of defensiveness. “Neville can only see me.”

“I only see Luna,” Neville said.

Hermione frowned. “You see Luna?”

“I saw you at first, but now it's just Luna.”

Hermione worried at her lower lip. “Oh, bother. Her more local connection must have overridden mine. It's not supposed to do that…”

Sophie sat next to her and put one hand on the mirror. “Maybe if we reset it then it will go back to the primary thread.”

“What I want to know is why Luna's mirror took priority in the first place, I thought we'd fixed that after it was showing half of both ends. Ginny's latency is also noticeably higher; perhaps if we—”

“You guys wanna troubleshoot later?” Scott suggested acerbically. “I need to talk to Nev while I still can.”

“You're right, of course,” Hermione quickly agreed, though she then leaned towards Sophie and muttered, “We'll look into this after.”

“I'm in the Room of Requirement,” Neville said, his voice a bit soft and distant through the mirror. Sophie made a mental note to boost the gain. “I've got probably another half hour before I'll be missed in class.”

“I won't be missed at all,” Luna said, and it wasn't clear whether she meant from class or just in general.

“You know I'll miss you,” Neville said quietly. There came a sound through the mirror that sounded a lot like a kiss, and Sophie suppressed a delighted giggle.

“Er, Nev, just so you know, we can still hear you,” Harry said uncomfortably. “So don't… you know, if it's private…”

Neville cleared his throat. “Right. S-sorry. Um… What did you want to talk about?”

“How's Hogwarts, mate?” Ron wanted to know.

Neville sighed. “Not good. The Carrows are in charge of discipline and the Slytherins more or less have the run of the place. Even some of them are pretty unhappy about how things are, though. Everyone keeps their mouths shut if they know what's good for them.”

“Did they replace McGonagall?” Hermione asked, looking as if she already knew the answer.

“No, I've just seen her today and she's still herself,” Luna reassured her.

Hermione paused in confusion. “…What? Who would she… I meant as Headmaster, is she no longer Headmaster?”

“You must not have been getting the _Prophet,”_ Neville said grimly. “Just as well, it's a load of wank, now. They made the announcement weeks ago, Snape is in charge—”

“WHAT?!” Harry roared, making everyone in the room jump. He ignored their glares, fuming.

“Harry! My fuckin' ears, dude!” Scott protested.

“Don't _you_ start, of all people,” Ron warned him.

“I haven't seen him much, mostly just at mealtimes,” Neville continued, probably not really sure what was happening on the other end.

“His greasy, cowardly traitor arse doesn't deserve to be anywhere near that chair,” Harry growled. Ginny had shifted to the edge of the bed to be near him, although her visage was almost as thunderous as his.

“Probably not, though, uh, there is something I need to cover with you guys that I sort of forgot about. We'll do that later, it's not crucial,” Scott said quickly in a fishily offhand fashion.

That earned him a few suspicious glances from the Primes, but there were more pressing matters at hand. “How about you lot, are you still all right?” Neville inquired.

“Wait, before we get to that,” Scott said loudly, cutting off Hermione who had started to reply, “do we need to get you two out of there? Lil said she barely got to talk to you, so now's the time to let us know.”

“I… I think we need to stay,” Neville said stoically. “Someone has to be here, since things are getting worse.”

“We can watch the school. I'm quite observant,” Luna informed them.

“I know,” Scott said. “But the offer will continue to stand. And if I hear something about you guys that I don't like, I might just come get you anyway.”

“I expect I'd be ready to go by then,” Neville laughed weakly.

“Plus, I could stop by the Tower. I bet Seamus misses me, that potato-faced mick bastard.”

“I'm sure he misses all those playful beatings and racial slurs,” Hermione muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, probably makes him homesick,” Scott shot back.

“I'll tell him you said hello,” Neville said. “But what were you saying, Hermione?”

“I was actually about to say that we need your help,” Hermione said with a small sigh. “And I do regret the imposition, considering your situation.”

“But we really do need a hand with something, mate, or we wouldn't ask,” Ron added.

“Is it another mission?” Neville said eagerly.

“It is, but the parameters are different,” Scott said. “Does your family have a high-security vault in Gringotts?”

Neville sounded confused by what appeared to be a sudden change in topic as he said, “Sure, we've had one forever. I've only been a few times, though.”

“Would you be willing to add another trip to the tally?”

“Do you need to borrow money?” Neville said a bit hesitantly. “I think I can get some, but Gran would probably find out…”

“We're adequately funded for what we're doing; though, if you're offering—”

“We're not asking for any money, Neville,” Hermione interjected. “We'd like you to take Sophie to your family vault, it's very important that she see it.”

“But not right away,” Sophie whispered to Hermione.

Hermione gave her a strange look, and moved the mirror closer to a halfway point between the two of them.

“But not right away!” Sophie said loudly.

“You wanted to go later?” Neville said.

“We're not ready yet,” Harry provided, having largely recovered from his fit of anger.

“All right…” Neville said slowly. “I don't know how I'll slip away, though, unless we go over the holiday.”

Scott and Hermione looked to Ginny, who said, “Bill will be back before that. How much time will Sophie need?”

“I can't know for sure,” Sophie said.

Scott crossed his arms. “We have to be flexible. We'll shoot for winter break if we end up in the ballpark, but otherwise we need a different plan.”

“A plan that won't make Neville a fugitive unable to access his vault,” Hermione pointed out.

“Weekends, maybe. He might be able to disappear that long if Gryffindor will cover for him. Nev?”

Neville was silent for a moment, considering that. “I think I might be able to. There's no one else in the dormitory but Seamus. But if I said I was ill, Professor McGonagall might come to see if I needed Pomfrey.”

“McGonagall will be on our side,” Harry said.

“Tell her it's for Harry. Hell, I could have Lila contact her through the Order, say it's for them,” Scott suggested.

“No, that's no good,” Hermione said. “He can't very well be in public when he's supposedly sick in the dormitory.”

“Then it has to be December. There's not a lot of excuses to leave,” Scott said.

“Sure, all right,” Neville said, sounding a bit overwhelmed. “But I have to know when, exactly…”

“We'll stay in contact. Sophie will have a mirror with her at all times, so don't be afraid to use it when you can,” Hermione told him.

Before too long they were saying their goodbyes and going their separate ways: Ginny stayed in the room and continued to talk with Luna, whilst Harry, Ron and Hermione left to eat after their long study session. Sophie briefly looked in on Kylie, who was reading a book in the master bedroom, and then followed Scott to the motorcycle room.

“So…” she said, watching as he stripped his sheets for the laundry. “I hope I can learn how these doors work…”

“Yeah, me too,” Scott said.

She raised her chin and straightened her stance. “I don't want to compromise the mission.”

He halted with his arms full of pillows, giving her a serious look. “We're putting a lot on you. And none of us got much in the way of primer. But I can't think of any other way to do this short of involving the goblins, and what I've read indicates extreme loyalty to the bank. The Imperius Curse leaves the victim aware, Memory Charms can be broken, dead goblins can be missed. We need a distraction _and_ self-containment.”

Sophie was worried, but she didn't want him to think she was just whining. “I think I can do it, I just might need a lot of time and I don't want to… make you guys wait too much or let anyone down.” She fidgeted, debating whether to speak her next thought. “If you want to bring in someone else, I understand,” she said quickly, like tearing off a bandage.

“Like who?” Scott scoffed.

“Geraldine, Fhooley, Kim…” she said, listing a handful of higher-ranking veteran LSM specialists.

“All very talented individuals,” Scott recognised, “though I haven't worked with Fhooley or Harmon. And they'd all be starting from scratch, so how does that help me?”

“I just thought that you might be considering bringing in an FA with more experience, so I'm telling you that I'll do my best to help them transition,” Sophie said formally.

Scott dropped his dirty linens in a sloppy pile and fell back onto his unadorned bed, supporting the back of his head with his hands. “No, I already have one of the best.”

She hadn't been fishing for praise, not really, but there was a part of her that wanted the validation as much as anyone else did. Warmth suffused her and she smiled, rocking forward happily on her toes. “That's so sweet of you!” she gushed.

He opened one eye to look at her askance. “So, is this like an official, Army Business conversation or am I making you feel better, because you keep switching back and forth. Or do you tell Diehl that he's being sweet when you debrief?”

“And then he ruined it,” she sighed, turning to leave.

“Wait, I'm really curious now!” he called after her. “Sophie, have you ever told Diehl he's a sweetheart? Sophie!”

She returned to the training room where Bill had enchanted a few household objects with the kinds of anti-theft spells common to magical banking. Any one of them, or all of them, could be present in the Lestrange vault, and Sophie would need to understand their nature. It wouldn't be enough to simply erase whatever protections were in the way; she had to be able to recreate them.

She still had much to learn.


	33. This Conversation Is Ending Starting Right Now

**33**

**This Conversation is Ending Starting Right Now**

\--- 

_“Solus remains unique among the settled  
_ _worlds of the Republic. Its ecosystem is at  
_ _least partially manufactured, with the body  
_ _of available evidence suggesting it may be  
_ _artificial in its entirety. This is not uncommon  
_ _(see chapter IV: Introduced Diversity and  
_ _Terraforming), but the nature of that  
_ _artificiality is currently unparalleled. Solus  
_ _was once not only devoid of life, but unable  
_ _to host it, existing far outside any circumstellar  
_ _habitable zone. Once believed to be an  
_ _extrasolar capture, more modern evidence has  
_ _proven Solus to have been created in the initial  
_ _formation of the solar system. Instead, it was the  
_ _sun itself which was replaced, creating a habitable  
_ _zone. The method through which this was  
_ _accomplished remains one of the greatest  
_ _scientific mysteries.”_

_—_ Erik Bergen, _Single Sun: A History of the Solus System_

\---

“Impromptu meeting! Impromptu meeting, totally off the cuff. Gather 'round,” Scott said, clapping his hands together. “Come on, let's make this fast. There is shit what needs doing.”

He had waltzed into the room with Harry and Sophie following. Hermione, Ron and Ginny were in the midst of yet another research session, this one concerning the use of blood in rituals of magical binding. Ron couldn't make sense of half of what he was looking at, which was actually a higher percentage than usual. The age of the books did not help, as so much of their wording was coached in ancient syntax that required multiple readings to grasp.

So he wasn't exactly heartbroken to take a breather, no matter how fast Scott wanted to make it. He had been considering volunteering his services downstairs, where Scott and Harry were studying maps of Diagon Alley.

“Two things,” Scott continued once he had gathered their attention. “Actually, first I need to know if you've said anything about the wand already, Hermione?”

“Oh! The wand, yes. I mentioned it to Ron, but not in any specifics. I'm afraid it's been a bit lost in the shuffle,” Hermione said.

“As it probably should be. Let me summarise: when we were at Hogwarts, Dumbledore's portrait asked me to take his wand when I left. His wand is something called a 'Deathly Hallow', which are apparently magical artefacts which, when united, make the owner a 'Master of Death'.”

Ron's mouth dropped open. “No way!” he breathed. He knew the Deathly Hallows as well as he did the rest of Beedle's tales. But he'd always been told it was just that: a story, and nothing more.

“Yeah, way. So, we have the Elder Wand. Which, as it turns out, means very little. We have one out of three magical things which may or may not do anything at all. But it's not our wand, and we all know how wands work — more or less — so whatever. Me and Hermione talked it over, and we think that Dumbledore wanted us to hold on to his wand since he knew his grave would be vulnerable now that Hogwarts is occupied.”

Ron couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Might not do anything at all? Mate, if that's actually the Elder Wand, it can't be beaten!”

Scott raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Go ask Dumbledore how that worked out for him. I'll wait right here.”

That brought Ron up short. By definition the Elder Wand couldn't be unbeatable, if Dumbledore had been beaten, but— “Still, what if that's why You-Know-Who was always afraid of him? Maybe the story's wrong, but if it's completely wrong, then why would he want us to have it?”

“He didn't defend himself,” Harry murmured, his eyes haunted.

Ginny placed a hand on his knee. “Harry?”

“We landed on the Tower; just got back from the cave. He had me wear my Cloak, just in case, but then Malfoy came in and…” Harry paused, jaw muscles clenching, and then said, “Dumbledore froze me so I wouldn't be found. He did that instead of fight back, and Malfoy Disarmed him.”

“Hard to believe that little ferret got the drop on Dumbledore,” Ron muttered.

“He was ill, I think. With his hand all blackened as it was, something wasn't right,” Hermione said sadly.

“That's actually part _zwei,”_ Scott said, leaning back against the wall.

Scott explained what the portrait had told him, how Dumbledore had been poisoned destroying one of the Horcruxes and had then hatched his convoluted plan to save Malfoy ( _save_ Malfoy, of all the fucking people!) from having to carry out Riddle's orders.

“So then he went through the whole thing with Harry's little problem and the blood protection. But the gist of it is, goddamn crazy as it sounds, Snape is apparently still on our side,” Scott concluded.

Ron had no idea how to handle that. And from the look on Harry's face, he didn't either.

“That's… a bit hard to swallow,” Hermione said uncertainly, assessing her friends.

“Well, Snape hates Harry and hates all of us and is definitely a bipedal anus with a shitty haircut, so when I say 'on our side', I mean on Dumbledore's side,” Scott amended.

“It would explain why the Death Eaters never made their way here before we reclaimed it,” Hermione mused.

The look Harry gave her was one of betrayal. “So that's it? We're all just good with him now, everything's effing brilliant?”

Hermione flinched slightly. “Harry… I know that we don't have the best history with him, but if he's really working towards the same goal, then he is in a unique position—”

“That we can't jeopardise anyway,” Scott interrupted. “He can't openly help us without blowing his cover and we can't approach him without revealing what we've been doing.”

“Surely he knows already?” Hermione conjectured. “He's in Dumbledore's confidence, after all.”

Scott shrugged. “I don't know. Look, if Snape is still in Dumbledore's pocket then maybe he can be useful and undermine Riddle or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that he's sitting right next to enemy _numero uno_ and we can't come near the guy. We can't act in any way that will jeopardise his infiltration.”

Ginny had an odd look on her face. “So… is this even important, then?” she said.

Scott shook his head. “No. We have a wand that may or may not be special and we have someone else's double agent and we don't know enough to use either of them. But I knew you guys would get pissed if I didn't tell you, and I said we should make this meeting fast, and we've already spent enough time discussing this.”

Harry actually began to laugh, a sound more tired than joyful. “When did my life get to the point where finding out Snape isn't a traitor doesn't even rate as important?” he said, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“And that the Deathly Hallows are real!” Ginny added.

“I'd like to talk to him,” Harry said, staring at the floor, and he clearly wasn't referring to Snape.

“I was actually thinking about making a return trip for that. Just me, though. Dumbledore's portrait said that they're all compelled to serve the current Headmaster, and I talked about Horcruxes right in front of all of them. So either Snape is definitely not telling Riddle what's up, or the portraits aren't trying very hard to help him,” Scott said.

“Or Dumbledore is still in charge, so far as Snape is concerned,” Hermione reasoned.

“I'd probably feel bad for trying to kill Snape, if he wasn't such a turd,” Scott mused.

“I want to know more about this wand,” Harry said abruptly. Ron agreed: the idea that Snape might not be their enemy was emotionally confusing, but the thought of having one of the Deathly Hallows was downright exciting.

Scott shrugged. “You know what we do. It's a Deathly Hallow, Dumbledore told me to take it.”

“There has to be more. It's supposed to be powerful, right? And even if it isn't unbeatable, any extra power is better than none.”

“Yeah, but it's not your wand, man.”

“It can't have been Dumbledore's, either. It's too old for that, Hermione's book is ancient,” Harry pointed out. “So how did he make it work for him?”

“Well, I don't fuckin' know, do I.” Scott raised his hands in a 'what do you want from me' sort of way. “Maybe I'll ask him if I get over to Hogwarts.”

“Could I see it?” Ron said, eager to check it out for himself.

“Sure, whatever. Everybody give a try, put it in your mouth, rub your balls on it, since we're all so fucking excited,” Scott drawled, obviously tired of the subject entirely.

Sophie discreetly kicked the heel of his boot.

“I have it in my handbag, Ron,” Hermione told him. “Let's take it down to the training room before we do anything with it, just to be careful.”

“You do that. Meeting adjourned,” Scott proclaimed.

***---~**~---*** 

The next morning, Harry was finishing up his shower and performing his daily ritual of avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. Ever since he'd found out about the Horcrux inside of him, he'd developed the habit of ignoring his own reflection to the best of his ability. The worst thing was, he _knew_ it was weird and neurotic and probably more than a bit mad; he looked no different than he ever had, he wasn't changing with the revelation. But, somehow, his own visage was just a reminder. He didn't feel like himself anymore, when he saw the teen in the mirror.

So, not healthy, obviously, but probably better than doing what he felt like doing sometimes, which was screaming at the top of his lungs or going comatose with terror. Harry wasn't worried about inadvertently hurting anyone if he threw an epic wobbly, since he reckoned Scott would probably just choke him out the second words failed to calm him, but it was the kind of state he knew his friends would prefer not to see him in. So he suppressed his natural reactions to being a bloody Horcrux and dealt with whatever bubbled up around the edges, like the mirror thing.

He was also still trying to wrap his head around what Scott had told them about Snape. Even if it was true, it wasn't as if Harry's feelings towards the man would change. He'd hated Snape back when he'd thought the man was just a professor in the employ of Hogwarts and nothing more.

Harry had seen Snape kill Dumbledore. He'd watched it happen right in front of him, helpless to intervene. It was hard to override that image, to re-contextualise it with a few words offering a different perspective. How could Harry accept that? He'd done his best to kill Snape that night. His best hadn't been good enough, but he could still remember the almost unbearable rage which had gripped him.

Still… He remembered how Snape hadn't been the one to kill Scott. It had been one of the other Death Eaters. Snape had tried to reason with Scott instead of blasting him out of the way. Scott had a gun trained on him, true, but Snape was a master of nonverbal spells. It had struck Harry even at the time as an oddly non-aggressive moment from a man who had just killed his Headmaster and supposed friend.

Ultimately, Ginny had been right: in a weird way, it didn't matter. Even if Snape were on their side, they still had to treat him like an enemy. Which was far from a burden.

Harry didn't know what he would do if he ever saw Snape in person.

On his way down to breakfast he was surprised to see Lila's SMG sitting against the wall outside of the other loo. She must have been by to visit again. He studied the weapon for a moment, not daring to touch it. He needed to remember to ask either Lila or Scott about it, because he quite liked the look of it but didn't know what kind it was.

Walking down the stairwell, he started planning out his day. Hermione thought she might be narrowing down some real answers for taking care of his Horcrux, so Harry would probably be drafted to assist with that again at some point. Ultimately his real job would be to sit there whilst he was poked and prodded (or killed), but until then he was another pair of eyes for reading. He also wanted to continue planning some of the finer details of movement for the Gringotts mission. With Scott, he had been studying Diagon Alley down to the finest details they could discern from the maps they had. Whatever would happen with the vault was still up in the air, but how they would actually get in was starting to take shape.

Meanwhile, training continued. Harry was still attempting to increase the number of spells he could cast nonverbally, a painfully slow process. He hadn't made enough progress to feel like it would be helpful, but he knew that repetition was still increasing his power and accuracy, so it was worthwhile. The dining hall had become a mass of wards, Imperturbed objects lining the walls. Scott had begun to instruct Harry on the use of handguns, which Harry had found considerably more difficult to operate than his shotgun.

“There you are,” Ginny said when Harry entered the kitchen. “I saved you a scone.”

The scone she had 'saved' for him had a very conspicuous bite out of it, but he accepted it gratefully. “Thanks. I'm bloody starving.”

Ginny nodded. “I know. I just want to eat all the time lately. You'll still want to snog me if I get fat, right?”

“Just more of you to snog,” Harry told her with a grin.

“We've been burning a considerable amount of calories with our training,” Hermione commented.

“Do you get tired from casting spells?” Sophie asked as she seated herself at the table with another bowl of ridiculously buttery porridge.

“Yes, but not quite in the same way. Casting doesn't put much strain on the muscles, not like what we've been doing,” Hermione said, referring to the basic self-defence that Sophie had been teaching.

Scott, who had his chair back on two legs and his feet up on the table, dropped his legs and rocked his chair forward with a clatter. “Hey, Sophie has something for you guys that I want you to look over.”

Sophie produced two small booklets from one of her pockets and passed them to Hermione and Harry. “Scott said he wanted to start with you two, since you'll be the most comfortable,” she said. She then stood and left the kitchen, saying, “I have some other things I found, I'll be right back!”

Harry picked up the booklet: it was a beginner's guide for operating a motor vehicle.

Scott leaned his chair back again. “I mentioned it before, but we never got around to it. I think it would be good if at least a couple of you knew how to drive.”

“I'd like to drive,” Ginny said, reaching for Harry's booklet.

He looked at her sceptically, holding the booklet back out of her reach. “Since when?”

“Since we went to the shop! The Muggles have those cars everywhere, I'll bet it'd be dead useful to know how to work one,” she said.

Harry looked over to Scott. “I suppose we'll both read it.”

“Couple's activity! So cute,” Scott said in a falsetto.

Ginny's expression indicated a forthcoming retort, but she, along with everyone else, was distracted by loud footsteps on the stairs.

Lila stormed down the steps and into the kitchen, her blonde hair for once free of its ponytail, instead draped wetly around her shoulders. She was holding a sodden, white puffy thing; stopping in front of the table, she held the object out accusingly. “You used my loofah,” she said to Scott.

He frowned at her. “What?”

“You used my damn loofah!” she reiterated with more anger.

“What the hell would I do with one of those?”

“I don't want to know! I went in to take my shower and my loofah, which I placed on the sink, was hanging in the shower and it was wet. You take my things, and then you don't even care enough to put them back where you found them! Do you respect nothing?”

Scott crossed his arms derisively. “I don't respect your fucking _loofah,_ if that's what you're asking.”

Lila tossed the loofah onto the table, spraying the surface with water. “You're dead!” she declared, and then — to the great surprise of everyone in the room — she launched herself at Scott.

“COME AT ME, SIS!” Scott roared defiantly as Lila vaulted over the table. They crashed together, toppling Scott's chair and ending in a blurred tangle of striking limbs on the floor.

“Bloody hell!” Ron exclaimed. The closest to the two combatants, he began to slide his chair farther away.

“It was me who used it,” Hermione whispered guiltily to Ginny. “I thought it was yours.”

Ginny frowned at the other girl. “Hey!”

Sophie, who had just come back into the room when Lila pounced onto Scott, stopped in her tracks. “Oh, are they wrestling again?” she said.

“Uh… Does this happen a lot?” Harry asked her.

“Sometimes. They didn't have a childhood together, so I think this is one of their ways of making up for that,” Sophie said pensively, watching as Lila wrapped her arms around Scott's torso and flipped him backwards into the wall whilst Ron made a noise of appreciation.

Harry winced. “Should we stop them?”

“No. Not unless someone starts bleeding.” Sophie pouted a little, her lower lip protruding. “They never ask me to join…”

Privately, Harry thought that Scott would wrestle with Sophie any time she asked.

“Say you're sorry!” Lila demanded, draped over Scott's back with her arms tight around his neck.

Scott spat out a mouthful of her wet hair. “I would rather _die.”_

Lila's eyes narrowed dramatically. “So be it.”

“They don't mean that,” Sophie assured Harry.

“Er, yeah. I gathered,” Harry said.

Breakfast ended up being unusually entertaining, to say the least.

The atmosphere became more serious in the afternoon. After a house-wide gathering session, everyone convened around the kitchen table and placed whatever wizarding money they could forage in a pile. Harry had contributed what he had found in his trunk. The sum total of their collective spare change was underwhelming.

“We'll have to dip into my emergency fund,” Hermione sighed, surveying the rather pitiful pile of coins they had scrounged. “But it's not much, just whatever spending money I had left from the school year.”

“How are we doing?” Scott asked Lila.

“If you need regular money, we're doing fine. But I haven't been to the bank in forever. Most of what we have is in pound notes, and you have a lot of that,” she said.

“We have plenty of Muggle money,” Hermione agreed. “We're in no danger of starving in the immediate future.”

“I won't let you starve!” Sophie said with a smile. “I can get a job if I have to.”

“This is a lot of people to feed on a single income,” Scott noted.

“I could get a _good_ job,” Sophie added. “And I don't pay rent. Or utilities.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “You really think anyone in London is going to accept your glowing recommendations from Strauss Industries?”

Scott raised his hands and slowly parted them, as if he were unveiling a banner. “Strauss Industries: We Totally Exist!”

“My skills are very marketable,” Sophie haughtily declared.

“Regardless,” Hermione said, determinedly moving the conversation back on topic, “I don't think what we have here will pay for all the Polyjuice ingredients, especially not if we're going to buy others to deflect suspicion.”

“I guess we don't have to do that, but it seems like a bad idea to waltz in there and buy exactly what someone would need to make Polyjuice,” Scott said.

“Do you think they might expect it?” Ginny supposed. “What with all the times you lot have used it, and the fake Moody…”

“And the Order's rubbish plan,” Harry added.

Ron grinned at Hermione. “You started a trend.”

“Polyjuice isn't quite fashionable yet,” Hermione said dryly. “It's rare enough that I don't think anyone automatically assumes people aren't themselves; not that we'll be disguised as anyone who would be recognised, anyway.”

“But don't advertise that you might have it,” Lila said.

“Hence our need for more varied ingredients, and more money.”

Harry sighed in frustration. “I should have gone to Gringotts last year and filled my trunk with Galleons.”

“The Order isn't exactly swimming in assets, mostly for the same reason,” Lila told him. “They could probably cover this, though.”

Harry immediately shook his head. “No, we can work this out. I don't want to take money from them.”

“Why not rob the place?” Scott suggested.

“Why draw attention to what was taken?” Hermione countered.

Lila made her own larcenous recommendation. “I could rob a different place. Just for cash.”

Hermione huffed in exasperation. “What is it with you two and theft?”

Scott shrugged. “It comes up a surprising amount during integrations. You don't always have the time to get funding legitimately. It helps if you have a rich Prime, like Harry, but he's kind of cut off right now.”

Harry hid a smile, suddenly struck by the humorous realisation that — in direct contrast to his other friends, especially the Weasleys — Scott would have had no compunction whatsoever in taking advantage of Harry's fortune. Had he integrated earlier in Harry's life, he probably would have been spending Harry's money on everything from guns to video games.

“I'm sure Neville could help us, but we have to start the brewing as soon as possible, we can't wait until his trip with Sophie,” Hermione said.

“The twins,” Lila said abruptly. “They were loaded. They had cash in the shop and a whole bunch more before they had to go incognito with the rest of us. They planned ahead.”

“Tell them that Harry needs some money, I know they'll help,” Ginny said.

“They've been paying for some Order expenses, but I'm pretty sure they've got enough to kick some your way. I'll talk to them.”

“They owe me, anyway,” Harry said, thinking of his tournament winnings.

“Lil, I don't know when you can see the twins, but we have an appointment next week,” Scott told her. “I called in about the acq we need for this bank hit and Diehl wants to see both of us in person.”

Lila's brow furrowed. “Uh, is he aware we're in the middle of something?”

“I genuinely do not fucking know what is going on at the Consist,” Scott said, sounding fed up. “I asked for a temp AFA so Sophie has some backup. He at least approved that.”

“It better be somebody worth the posting,” Lila said, crossing her arms.

“Actually, we did all right. It's Cody.”

Lila's arms dropped, her face switching to satisfied. “Oh, good.”

“Yeah, he can handle a day.”

Harry held up a finger, feeling very left out of the conversation. “Hold on, what's happening? Are you going somewhere?”

“For a few hours. Don't worry about it,” Scott said.

“Whenever you say not to worry about something, it's a disturbingly good indicator that's exactly what I should be doing,” Hermione said pointedly.

“Now, that can _not_ be true. I've told you so many things that you never wanted to hear.”

“It's the little things you tend to gloss over. Out with it, what's our part in this?”

“You don't have a 'part',” Scott said. “Me and Lil are going to get some of the things we need. For whatever reason, we can't do it over the phone, so, another Primare will be coming here while we're gone. So don't do anything stupid until we get back. I think you can manage that.”

Harry felt ambivalent about that. A different Primare? Scott was a soldier and a bit of a nutter, but he was _their_ barmy soldier. Harry didn't want to work with someone else. What if he didn't like them? What if they did things differently?

Judging by Hermione's expression, she was having the same thoughts. “Someone new? That's quite a disruption. And they won't really know anything, will they?”

“It's for one day, max,” Scott said impatiently. “I'm not being replaced.”

“Could you be, though?” Hermione said worriedly. “I don't want them to decide to keep you and stick us with this new person.”

“Changing integrationists partway through an OP is like, literally the worst thing you can do for reasons that are too obvious to bother listing. They never do that unless they have absolutely no choice.” Scott jerked a thumb in Lila's direction. “Honestly, if for some reason I couldn't do this anymore, they'd probably toss it over to Lila even though she isn't even an integrationist. That's how much familiarity matters.”

“They'd still bring in someone fully rated to assume the OP,” Lila noted. “But leave me in charge of you guys.”

“So who's the new bloke?” Ron asked.

“Primare Cody DeLucca. He's good people. He's a jabbery little ballsack, but he's good people.”

“You'll be fine with him. He's cool,” Lila assured them.

“Is there anything that we should know about him?” Hermione asked.

“Uh…” Scott tapped his fingers on the table. “I was going to say don't make fun of his accent, but you can go ahead. Mock his height, too, that'll be fun.”

“I don't know, he's as tall as I am,” Lila said.

“You're tall for a chick, and he's short for a guy.”

“But Lila's the same height as me,” Harry protested.

“Yeah? What's your point, shortstack?”

“I'm not short!”

“Agree to disagree, mate,” Ron said with a grin.

“Harry is actually taller than the adult male average,” Sophie informed them, coming to Harry's defence. He gave her a grateful look.

“I think you're just right,” Ginny told him.

“Of course she thinks that, from her perspective,” Scott jeered. “She probably can't make out the ceiling.”

“Is that so?” Sophie said, crossing her arms.

Scott rolled his eyes. “Oh, now Sophie is offended. It's your own fault for inviting the contrast with your choice of best friend; when you stand next to Lila, you look like nesting dolls.”

“And you always look like an arse, no matter who you're standing with,” Ginny said coolly.

Hermione was apparently determined to get some useful information. “Scott, I would like to make a decent first impression, so if you could stop disparaging your co-worker for a moment…”

Scott was still chuckling over Ginny's riposte, but he shrugged and said, “He's pretty easy-going. He's a Combat Corps Primare, we've both worked with him a bunch of times. Just let him hang around here until we come back.”

“Very well,” Hermione said a bit dubiously. “Though try not to delay if you can help it.”

“Miss me already?”

“I will when we have to set aside your part of our preparations,” Hermione said with a note of reprimand.

“It's just for a day, tops! I don't want to go, believe me.” Scott thumped his fist on the table. “When I put in for acquisitions, I had to tell them it was for a mission in the planning stages. Normally, I'd leave it at that, but the Colonel got on the line and gave me the fucking inquisition for reasons that only became clear afterwards. If I'd known that he wanted to make sure I could safely get away for a little while…”

Hermione sighed. “We'll be all right. There's still plenty we can be working on.”

“And I'll still be here,” Sophie said importantly. “Sophie is on the job!”

“Strauss, don't refer to yourself in third person,” Lila said flatly.

“But, I was being ironic.”

“Yeah, and you can't pull it off. We've talked about this.”

“You don't get to tell me what forms of humour I can assume!”

“Okay,” Scott said, sitting up straight, “I vote everyone get up and walk away from the table. All in favour?”

“Aye,” Harry voted, and was quickly seconded by the rest of his friends.

***---~**~---***

Lila stood in the spring air, watching the wind blow a colourful assortment of leaves across the pavement and back into the grass. She hadn't been around to know exactly what the weather had been like, but it looked as if the last remnants of snow had melted not too long before. The grass was a mixture of green and brown, and the pond was overflowing. The Solas sun shone down through a perfectly clear blue sky, dispelling most of the chill outside of the shade.

The sounds of the City were so distinct from those of London. It was odd to not hear the usual assortment of car tyres on pavement and horns blaring in the distance. Aside from the gentle hum of a sidewalk cleaner nearby, there wasn't any traffic audible on the Consistorium grounds. Lila watched as the cleaner extended a pronged appendage and began picking up paper wrappers caught in a nearby bush, dropping the litter into its trash port and compressing it with a quiet hiss.

Scott approached her, holding two shed buns. “Check it out, the dude only had two of the pork left. Score.”

“Nice,” she said, accepting the hot paper-wrapped bun. “I've missed these.”

They stood in silence for a moment as they ate. “Okay,” Scott said, swallowing, “so we don't have an appointment, per say, but the sooner we get in there the sooner we can start waiting.”

“Hurry up and wait,” Lila said through a mouthful of bun.

“Don't HUAW with your mouth full.” Scott sniffed and looked down at his food. “I should have grabbed something to drink.”

Second South was the same as ever, a little more tucked away than some of the other more ostentatious wings of the Consistorium. The polished granite decorating its outer facings reflected the wavering light off the park pond; the KRAF seal set over the entryway was bright in the shadow of the walkway roof, illuminated by a few tastefully hidden spotlights.

The inside was still cool air and polished marble offset by dark wood-grain, though there was more ambient noise than Lila was used to. There were a number of people scattered throughout the lobby, some in chairs, some conversing in the corners or near the windows. She recognised a few of them as fellow Primares, trading a friendly nod with Dominic Alta, who had noticed her entry. He had been one of the candidates in her application group.

She followed Scott towards the centre of the room. “Tula's at the desk. Had Aspen last time,” Scott said as they approached.

“Tula?” Lila frowned. “I thought you didn't like her.”

“Huh? No, you're probably thinking of Tara. Tula's loud, but harmless. And always willing to talk.”

“Ah, a good source.”

“Yeah, I pump her for information and she makes semi-amusing comments about wanting to pump me for something, too.”

“Semen?”

“Or so I've inferred.” Scott looked up at the emitter board above the front desk. “Look at that. When was the last time there were that many people in the offices? What is— turn around!”

Lila quickly followed his example, pivoting on her heel to gaze out the bank of windows on the far wall. “Why are we doing this?” she said quietly.

“It's Major Wakeman,” he hissed, one hand calmly gesturing as if they were in a much milder conversation. “Man, we don't have time for this.”

Lila frowned. “I don't know her.”

“You would if you had integration rating. Elabeth Wakeman. She's probably going to see me. She always does,” Scott grumbled.

Lila raised one eyebrow suggestively. “An admirer of yours?”

“An admirer of my work. And yours, right now. She runs the GROVE project out of Charpenak.”

“For the Archival?”

“I think they coordinate, but GROVE is a Primarius section.” Scott grimaced. “Oh, fuck me. Here she comes.”

“What is she going to want?” Lila quickly whispered.

“Interviews, she'll tell you she only wants a few minutes but she'll keep you there for hours,” Scott answered in a single breath, beginning to shift around to confront the Major. “Don't commit to anything; remember, we're here under Diehl's orders.”

“Primare Kharan!” the woman called out behind them.

“God. Dammit.” Scott turned back around, his expression polite. “Major,” he acknowledged, saluting her.

Wakeman returned the salute. “Captain. And Lieutenant,” she said in surprise, noting Lila's uniform.

“Ma'am,” Lila said.

The Major looked between the two of them as if she were solving a puzzle. A very easy puzzle, considering their resemblance. “You must also be Primare Kharan,” she surmised.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Wakeman looked like she had won a prize. “Well, this is quite the opportunity, Primares,” she began.

“I'm not sure what you have in mind,” Scott lied, “but at the moment we're under orders from Colonel Diehl to report in ASAP.”

“I assumed you had orders from the Colonel,” Wakeman said. “That won't be a problem, you can report to me after you see him.”

A muscle in Scott's jaw twitched. “We're currently on deployment, fully integrated, and we can't leave our Primes for very long, Major.”

Wakeman frowned slightly. “Do you not have an AFA assigned?”

“We do, but—”

“Then I'm sure your Primes will be fine for a little longer. Report to GROVE at Charpenak after you've seen Colonel Diehl,” Wakeman said casually, deliberately phrasing it as an order.

Judging from the way Scott's face had become increasingly blank, Lila figured he was going to push back until he couldn't anymore.

“Yes, ma'am,” Lila interjected before he could get himself in trouble.

“I look forward to your insight, Primares,” Wakeman said brightly, saluting them once again and then walking away.

“Diehl will get us out of this,” Lila told Scott as they watched Wakeman leave.

“He'd better. It's just a matter of time before something attacks or mind controls or ejaculates on Harry,” Scott muttered. “Kid's a crap magnet.”

Scott shook himself slightly and assumed what Lila thought of as his 'secretary face', the friendly, vaguely flirty demeanour he used to earn the good graces of the women (and occasional men) that made up the Consistorium's staff. The administrative personnel in Second South were all enlisted, but weren't required to wear dress uniform. The woman behind the central desk ('Tula', Lila reminded herself) was wearing a very smart business-style blouse and skirt, which was an interesting combination with her short purple hair, bright red glasses and numerous tattoos and piercings.

“Hey, Tula's on the job!” Scott said in greeting, sauntering up to the polished desktop and leaning over it. “Now things will actually get done around here.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Tula said with a pronounced Eastervale Hub accent. She stopped typing just long enough to favour him with an amused twist of her lips.

“You must know what's going on around here if anyone does,” Scott said, wagging a finger at the gathered visitors.

“You don't know?” Tula said, sounding shocked. She abandoned her emitter and pushed her glasses up (they had no lenses, Lila noted) as she spun her chair towards Scott. “It's oversight hearings, Scotty. Bad, bad news.”

“Yeah, but they've done this before.”

“Oh, sure — lots. But this time it's not going away so fast, and all the COs are scramblin'. You should have seen, oh my God, you shoulda seen when the joints came through here! You'da thought Hanetse finally pulled the plug; I called my sister to make sure Odaburk was still standin'!” Tula tapped her long, purple nails against the desk. “Been like a tap dance on these floors, all damn day. And they got me outta records just to watch the door, can you believe that? I'm already covering for Tara!”

“Well, no surprise there,” Scott said dryly.

“That girl, oh my God. But you're such a sight, how you been? I heard you were on a long-term. Is this your sister? Hi, I'm Tula,” she said, reaching for Lila's hand.

Lila shook it. “Lila Kharan.”

“And just as gorgeous as your brother. You know, I figured, I thought that you would be. I only seen your file a couple times but, yeah, now you're here and I thought you would be. I knew Diehl would bring you both in, it's the day for it. What a day! Holy hell, I can't wait to—”

Scott interrupted her. “Hold on, it's the day for it?”

“The oversights, Scotty, remember? Use your head, hon, of course Diehl was gonna call you down here. Everybody's on deck, especially me. I been all over the deck today. Now it's your turn, but I'm still here.”

Scott squinted uncertainly. “Because we have a good joint record?”

Tula glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in closer. “Because you're so photogenic together,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“Oh my God.” Scott's hands fisted on the counter as he looked at Lila. “He's risking my Primes for a photo op.”

“You guys are great for the press releases, not fooling. Brother and sister, good bodies, good records, too. They oughta trot you out more often in a pair, though you ain't bad by yourselves,” Tula said, snapping her gum.

“You know, I've been told I should go into modelling before. I really didn't think a military career would bring me back around to that,” Lila said thoughtfully.

“Full circle, sweets. You gotta use what God gave you; at least when the Colonel tells you to.”

“Diehl doesn't do this shit!” Scott said in frustration. “They must be about to nail his nuts to the wall or something, because, goddamn.”

“What about Greene, or Bedwin? They're both really sheen,” Lila said.

Tula nodded. “Already came and went. Pretty much anyone who looks good on file has been by.”

“Nobody looks that good on file. It's a glorified mugshot.”

“Yeah, and if you look doable in there then you'll be even better in person. Not even kiddin', they've had a few people go down to the overnights just to freshen up,” Tula told her.

“This is crazy!” Scott growled.

Tula gave him a look of exaggerated sympathy. “Oversight hearings, honey. Nobody wants another set of fingers in their pie.”

“So instead I have to show up looking like my pie is very fingerable,” Lila said dryly.

Tula tossed back her head and laughed like some sort of braying animal. “Oh, Lila Kharan! You look good enough to eat, don't you worry about that. You should swing by the desk more often, girl, I don't know if I ever talked to you before.”

“It's been an experience.”

Tula grinned widely, showing off several fashionable plated teeth. “I try to make it fun; I'm stuck behind a damn desk anyway, right? View's been better than usual today. Finger's been worse, though. What a day, holy hell. Tomorrow they can all cram it, I'm going over to Crowne to see my boyfriend and I'm gettin' laid at least twice, swear to God.”

Scott pressed a hand to his chest. “Tula! I thought we had something.”

Tula shrugged and snapped her gum again. “Too slow, Scotty. You talk a good game but you never put out.”

“Ah, well. My heart must go on,” Scott said. “And my body must also go on, to see Diehl.”

“I'll send him a blink from here, but I ain't walkin' over there to tap you in. Been doing that all day, my damn feet look like plimp trout.” Tula whipped through the emitter screens with lightning precision. “Okay, he should know you're here. Rest is up to you.”

“You're the best, Tula,” Scott said, beckoning Lila towards the leftmost hall. “Usual office?”

“Yep. Just play nice with the shills and he'll get you on your way.”

“We actually needed to talk to him for acquisition,” Lila said.

“Ooh, that's just bad timing, hon,” Tula said sympathetically. “That is just real bad timin'.”

The extent of just how bad their timing was became even clearer when they approached Diehl's office and found that there were already at least six people waiting to get in. Scott paused to rub at his eyes, obviously tamping down his frustration. Lila understood how he felt, even if she didn't feel it quite as sharply. Any integrationist worth the title hated to leave their Primes unless absolutely necessary. So far, their trip to the Consist had felt like anything but.

“Trent!” Scott called out, waving the big man over.

Trent Evans-Varea stood from the chair he had been occupying and came over to them with a big smile on his open face. He was a couple inches taller than Scott and built like a tree trunk. Lila had always liked him.

“Scott, Lila!” he said happily, shaking both their hands. “I was wondering if I'd see you two.”

“Tula said she's seen about everybody,” Scott said.

“Not too far from the truth, probably,” Trent agreed. “How are you, Lila?”

“Soon to be bored, from the look of it,” Lila said.

Trent nodded ruefully. “I've been here longer than I would have liked. Maria expected me back sooner, but, what are you gonna do?”

Lila shrugged. “Start shooting.”

Trent laughed, eyes crinkling. “A p-class would get me out of here in a hurry, that is true.”

Scott pointed at Diehl's door. “So, what exactly should we expect?”

Trent crossed his arms, his demeanour more serious. “Well, so far as I can tell, it seems like command is calling everyone in just to prove that they can. They've even brought in a lot of you IC guys; Fawcett is in there now.”

“Hey, I'm CC like you,” Lila said.

Trent smiled again. “Oh, it's just a matter of time, Lila.”

“This is a wider net than I expected,” Scott mused, observing the others in the hallway. “Diehl isn't even Fawcett's dispatcher, he works with Reyes.”

“It's not just Diehl, and it's not just us,” Trent explained, referring to the Primarius. “Diehl's just the one here to meet and greet. I think he drew the short straw.”

“I think we all did.”

“Feels like it. But from what I've been told, we're going to go in there and just do status.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah, that's it. There's some folks in there from the media bureau who will take your picture trading salutes, and then they bring in the next 'face of the Primarius'.”

“You always were more pretty than useful,” Scott told the other man.

“Hearts and minds, Scott,” Trent said with a twinkle in his eye.

“We only came in for acquisition,” Lila said.

“I heard you two were on long-term. How's that going?” Trent said interestedly.

“Fine, until we had to be here,” Scott grumbled.

“Well, I'll bet the Colonel will be happy to have some real business for a minute.” Trent looked back over his shoulder. “Looks like I'm next. Good luck with your OP. And, hey, I don't know when you guys will finish up, but I'm throwing a Unification Day lawn party again this year.”

“No promises, but you know I'd kill a man for one of those chimichangas Maria makes,” Scott said.

After Trent left, Scott and Lila seated themselves on a nearby bench and settled in to wait.

“I thought we were soldiers, not propaganda models,” Scott sneered quietly. “You know, if we were still on the GEP, choosing us would be a confirmation of western society's problematic physical standards.”

Lila looked at him, then down at herself. “We are some Aryan bullshit,” she concluded.

For whatever reason, that struck Scott as inordinately funny. He snorted into his fist, laughter squeaking out around his clamped lips. Then Lila began to smile, more at his snorting than what she'd said, and soon they were both doing their best to muffle their amusement, shoulders shaking with the strangled sounds of suppressed humour which were so obvious in the mostly empty hall.

“At least here we're just for flavour,” Lila said once they'd calmed.

“It's a contrast, isn't it? Back with Harry we represent a clichéd ideal; here, we're not even in style. Parvati would turn some heads.”

“Who?”

“Girl from school.” Scott sighed and put his head back against the wall. “I should have brought a cot.”

Fortunately, Diehl was nothing if not efficient. The meetings in his office seemed to average out at about ten minutes each, and it wasn't too long before the door opened and a frazzled Staff Lieutenant stepped out, calling, “Primare Kharan, and… Kharan,” he finished, confused.

“Lieutenant,” Scott said, breezing past the man. Lila was following close behind, ready to get the whole affair over with.

“Uh, Captain, I'm supposed to verify—” the harried officer protested, but Scott was already in the office, saluting the Colonel.

Diehl didn't bother rising from his desk, though his return salute was crisp. “Stand down, Benson, these are the ones,” he said, his voice a bit hoarser than usual.

As the Staff Lieutenant went back to the door, Scott and Lila seated themselves and studiously ignored the three media bureau officers clustered by the far wall.

“Captain, could we have you salute the Colonel again, we need a shot of—” one of them began.

“Sir, we're here to confirm our request for the acquisition we discussed,” Scott said, blithely ignoring the media officer.

The media officer was persistent. “Captain, if you could just stand up, please.”

Scott didn't even glance towards him. “Our acquisition, sir?”

Diehl blinked a bit longer than normal, obviously fighting the urge to shut his eyes. “This is what is you're going to do,” he said curtly. “Primares, on your feet.”

Scott and Lila rose from their chairs, and Diehl did the same.

Diehl raised his hand in a rigid salute, holding it. “Primares: name, rank and intent.”

“Primarius Captain Scott Kharan, reporting for acquisition request,” Scott said, saluting.

“Primarius First Lieutenant Lila Kharan, reporting for acquisition request,” Lila said, saluting.

Diehl nodded and dropped his arm. “Assuming that serves your purposes, I need you to step outside,” he told the media officers.

“Ah, Colonel, we have clearance from the joint staff to take record of your business today,” one of the officers hinted politely.

“Primare Kharan is the MOFA for an ongoing operation, the details of which you do _not_ have clearance for,” Diehl said calmly. “Now, if you would step out of the room.”

The media officers must have been around long enough to know not to test Diehl's patience. They filed out and the Staff Lieutenant went after them, shutting the door behind him.

Diehl re-seated himself with a weary dignity. “Let's get this taken care of so we can get you out of here,” he told Scott. “Now that you've done your duty.”

“It comes in all forms, sir,” Scott said, “including an order from Major Wakeman to report to GROVE after this.”

“Countermanded,” Diehl said without even glancing away from his screen. “Get back to your Primes as soon as you can.”

“Consider it done.”

Diehl tapped away at his screen. “I'm approving all items requested, but I want you to speak with Crandall about it when you collect. He might have some ideas suited to your bank mission.”

“This is all going to be at P-Sector?”

“Some of what you asked for will have to be shipped in. They should be pulling it out of storage right now.” Diehl dropped his hands and turned back to them. “Get over to the Transferral and give Crandall your parameters while you're waiting. Once you're back on site, tell DeLucca to report to me as soon as he clears the box.”

“Yes, sir, I'll tell him,” Lila said.

“Dismissed,” Diehl said, never one for unnecessary clarification or small talk.

Back out in the hallway, Lila wasn't surprised to see another group assembled and waiting. She and Scott traded handshakes and salutes with the mostly familiar faces on the way out.

“Man, I'm glad Diehl sheared the GROVE order, I thought we were gonna get corn-holed on that one,” Scott said as they strode back out into the park area. “What do you think: since we have to wait for shipping anyway, should we risk the crowd at Raufenfort just to kill some time?”

“If we walk to Raufenfort we might snap some more shed buns,” Lila pointed out.

“Raufenfort it is.”

Raufenfort Station was only a few blocks from the Consistorium grounds, down Ever Way. Lila took the moment to enjoy walking where there was no danger of recognition or hostile forces at all. The breeze was still chilly, but the sky was clear and no one on the sidewalk gave either of them a second glance. Up ahead, she could see the Station's red and silver dome peeking up over the Allen Building.

“Do you ever wish they had skyscrapers here?” Scott said, looking at the relatively flat skyline of the City. “They are pretty cool.”

“I don't know. It's not really the style.”

“'We are the office block persecution affinity',” Scott started to sing.

Lila rolled her eyes. “We have to get you out of England.”

They ended up finding another street vendor right in front of Raufenfort, and they partook accordingly. The Station was emptier than they had expected, likely due to the hour. It was the middle of the business day on their side of Solus, and although there were still quite a few people coming and going through the apertures there were few lines. Lila had been there during major holidays, when the floor was packed ass to elbow and it was impossible to move without kicking over someone's luggage.

The Transferral was the most popular destination, so it took them a minute to get to the front. Their identification as Primarius officers spared them the customs delay, and they were through the gate in short order.

The civilian aperture took them to Central. Lila hadn't been there in quite a while, almost always passing through Primarius Sector Central. The crowds were the same, as were the omnipresent advertisements and stores. Moving lights coursed overhead as the cross-lifts shot past the windows looking into the infrastructure, some on the outer hull offering a dazzling view of the distant Phalanx Nebula. Countless ships hovered as constellations of multi-coloured dots, a few close enough to see in detail. Most would be heading to one of the Gates, or the Transversal Waystation Array. A mining barge was moored nearby, connected by a long tube like a fish on a line. The head of its primary drill caught the light from the nebula, flashing in the corner of Lila's eye. The loudspeakers announced freight arrivals from New Canaan, Springland, Quell's Vineyard, Iioca and the Apogee Corporate Cluster.

She covetously eyed a display of adapti-fit summer tops as they passed. Of course, they'd probably cost a good thirty percent more in Transversal Station than they would at a regular shop. She couldn't wear them at Shell Cottage, anyway. It was possible that Molly might not notice how the clothing kept adjusting itself to never ride up or wrinkle, but she definitely wouldn't miss the scrolling text or moving images printed on it.

One lift ride later and they were walking into the gate armoury. The front part of the armoury was a medium sized room lined with gun racks and equipment lockers, all loaded and ready for field agents to grab and go. The tech equivalence gear that Scott had requested was all considered speciality, and though there was probably some selection below their feet in storage, the bulk of it would have to come from the Primarius Armaments Center, an enormous underground facility on Pavarel. Some of it might even be sourced from Third Army facilities, if needed.

“Technician Bennet,” Scott drawled as they approached the desk, overemphasising the 'B'.

Pat looked up from the SMG he had been reassembling. “Well, well. Not too good for us, anymore? Or did Litchfield stop taking IOUs?”

“Hey, I can afford Litchfield because I work for a living.”

“Yeah, I'm sure you're real busy, watching your Primes do everything for you. Hey, what did your last bill from Litchfield look like? Or does Sophie just cover that for you, now?”

“It looked like your bar tab, ya fuckin' souse.” Scott put his hands on the desk and leaned forward.

“Get your fat mitts off my work area, Kharan.” Pat nodded at Lila. “Lil. Always good to see you, at least.”

“Can you guys put a cap on the flirting or just blow each other, because I actually have places to be,” Lila said in a bored tone.

“Whoa, take it easy,” Pat said, cracking a smile. “We're just taking the time to say hello.”

“We're supposed to have a shipment coming in, a bunch of stuff for tech eq,” Lila told him. “And where's Crandall?”

Pat punched up his screen and scanned it. “Was this from Diehl?”

“Yeah.”

Pat pressed a greasy finger against one of the lines on the emitted screen. “Okay, I got your crate in about five minutes ago. Crandall should be pulling the sides off it right now.”

“Thanks, Pat,” Lila said, turning to go down.

“Hey, hold up,” Pat said. He reached under his desk and held up a new model Auslight 10mm with some fancy extras. “Are you gonna see Sophie sometime soon?”

“She's with us on a long-term,” Lila told him.

“Tell her I rescued her Aus before it got shuffled downstairs. She needs to remember to see me or get in the system to label it right, she just left it with Dowd.”

“She was in a hurry. It was a whole thing, we had a spirited discussion about it,” Scott said.

The area below the front office was vast, but cramped. Cages of weapons lined every wall while the floor space was taken up by endless, high-stacked rows of featureless plastic crates. It was always dimly lit in storage, for whatever reason. Probably cost effectiveness. The darkened room was too full to echo, and smelled strongly of metal, oil and the waxy aroma of the crates.

Crandall was on his knee pads next to a crate that had just come off the delivery corridor, peering into its contents with a trouble light in hand. He looked over his shoulder as they approached.

“Figured this for an integration,” he said in his usual husky mumble, grey moustache curling over a pale upper lip. “Nineteen-nineties?”

“Yep,” Lila said.

“Skimmed your parameters while I was waitin'. Don't usually need to mess with your picks, you've been there. I didn't tweak much, but they gave you an MGL variant that wouldn't be in service yet. Got you somethin' a little better suited.”

“Did they get everything else in there?” Scott asked, leaning over to look inside the stash.

“No, I got your forty by forty-sixes here,” Crandall wheezed. He stood and ambled his way over to a work bench, on which were stacked several green metal boxes. “All surplus, already had 'em. M651 CS… That's USA make, should be. And these are your flashbangs on impact fuse. Not sure where they came from.”

“Rheinmetall?” Scott guessed. He popped the case open and pulled one out. “Nope. Actually, this looks like an equivalence custom.”

“Someone probably had those made for who knows what. Ain't got a hold order on 'em, so they're yours now,” Crandall said. “Everything else is in the box. Bag's on the floor, right over there.”

Lila picked up one of the nondescript black duffel bags and began loading it. Scott grabbed a second one and did the same, carrying the cases from the bench. “Always a pleasure,” he said to Crandall.

“Service with a smile, that's our motto,” Crandall mumbled, his expression unchanging.

Lila paused to examine one of the cases of CS gas grenades. She knew they would be effective, but she was also beginning to wonder if there weren't going to be too many goblins in the entry hall. Harry had described the room as huge. They had enough grenades to blanket the place, but there would still be a lot of goblins and customers to restrain. And that was assuming CS gas was as effective on goblins as it was on humans.

She thought the flashbangs and gas would probably work, at least initially, but for two people to control a room of that size filled with a crowd of magic-users, they needed to think outside the box.

She was struck by a sudden idea. “Crandall, these 40mm grenades — do you have anything for custom dispersal?” she asked.

Crandall sniffed and chewed on his moustache for a moment. “Yeah, I reckon. Solid HE or powder?”

“Liquid.”

“Okay.” Crandall slowly turned in place, surveying his domain. “Well, I could get you somethin' hand thrown right away.”

“We have a really large room to suppress as fast as possible, so we were planning on the launchers,” Lila said. “Though we're taking both.”

“Okay,” Crandall said again. He brought up his screen and typed something in with his usual lethargy. “I got these 36mm casings they made for the defoliation tests on Silva. I guess they couldn't get one of their chemicals to burn right powdered, so they put these together. Take a look.” Lila and Scott stood and walked over to look at the screen. Crandall continued, “You'll have to be kinda precise. It's pressure based, comes out in a very fine mist. They disperse in the air over the length of their arc, see; you float 'em along over the target, supposed to be spent by the time they touch down. Like a crop dustin' grenade.”

Scott frowned. “This isn't tech eq stuff, though.”  
  
Crandall shrugged. “Nothin' special, either. Just a pressurised can with a mechanical fuse. Anybody could make it. I'll machine some new shells in 40mm and you can fill 'em with hot sauce if you wanted.”

“Did these things actually work?” Lila said doubtfully.

“Naw, they didn't put out enough vapour to cut a path. Not without a lot of them being fired. Weren't infantry efficient. But indoors, for what you're doin'?”

“What _are_ we doing?” Scott asked Lila.

“I was thinking about how to control the room,” Lila explained. “Anything that would give us the best advantage would also kill people. But then I thought about all those potions they have. Molly takes a Dreamless Sleep one sometimes.”

Scott's eyes lit up. “Lil, you might be a genius.”

“Might be?”

“Only if it's feasible. I can't in good conscience call you a genius if it ends up not being feasible.”

“I could feasibly make you eat those words,” she promised.

Scott looked back at Crandall. “One of us will be back to get them. Hopefully without having to go to the Consist for another meet and greet.”

“Oversight hearins',” Crandall torpidly replied. “Keepin' my head down and m' mouth shut.”

“Sometimes I wonder why you're not in charge, Crandall.”

“'Cause I ain't got my head up my pucker,” he said with a wispy chuckle.

Lila and Scott took one of the lifts back to the hallways. They rode in companionable silence for most of the way, weighted down with their newly acquired hardware. Lila mentally tallied how much ammunition she had at Shell Cottage, plus what was still hidden in the flat.

“I guess it was all worth it,” Scott said, patting the duffel bag on the seat next to him.

Lila nodded. “When we get back, I'll track down the twins and ask about that potion.”

“I'll ask about it, too. If we're going to need more ingredients for that, we might need more cash from the twins. Maybe Hermione can give us an estimate.”

Lila felt a twinge of anticipation, which she quickly suppressed. There was no point in getting excited about their forthcoming assault. Whatever should happen, they would be prepared. Of course, even detailed preparation could prove insufficient. Chaos was the only constant in combat. But, worrying about the inadvertent solved nothing.


	34. The Crowded Hour

**34**

**The Crowded Hour**

\--- 

_“The LSM Corps is frequently misunderstood,  
_ _and therefore often unfairly maligned. By  
_ _its very nature, such a speciality does not  
_ _lend itself to the showy displays or battle  
_ _statistics that make for interesting stories, fit  
_ _for the news cycle or the local bar. The  
_ _LSMC work in technicalities, exacting detail,  
_ _and foreign universe specifics. Their  
_ _accomplishments are as difficult to quantify  
_ _as they are absolutely necessary to the success  
_ _of more missions than could be counted.”_

_—_ B. Q. Lyons, _And Shall Fight on the Farthest Shores: The Primarius, The Mission, and The Modern Republic_  

\---

Harry turned the Elder Wand over in his hand, rubbing his thumb along some of the filigree on the handle. Straightening his arm, he pointed it towards the nearby tea cup.

 _“Reducto!”_ he snapped.

The spell hit the cup and shattered it with explosive force, flinging shards against the walls. Harry instantly regretted not using a less volatile spell as he was pelted with sharp bits of porcelain. He covered his face with his arms reflexively.

“Didn't think that through,” he said to himself, coming out of his defensive stance.

The cup was obliterated, though he had felt the wand's resistance. It was difficult to judge, but he thought that the power of his spell hadn't been any greater than his own wand, and probably a bit less. Definitely more difficult to use, either way. So the Elder Wand didn't just work for whomever picked it up.

He slumped against the wall and stared at the thing. What was the point of it? If it was no better than a normal wand, why did Dumbledore want them to have it? Harry wondered if Dumbledore had thought that Riddle might desecrate his grave for petty reasons, taking the wand because he could. The Headmaster had collected all kinds of artefacts, considering what he'd had in his office. Perhaps he'd only wanted to keep a very important one from being stolen. It seemed likely, after all, that Riddle would visit Dumbledore's tomb at some point, if only to gloat.

Harry desperately wanted to speak to Dumbledore's portrait. There were so many questions he had that only Dumbledore could answer. But going to Hogwarts whilst it was in session was an entirely different sort of endeavour than sneaking in before the start of term. And Snape would be in the Headmaster's Office. But he was supposedly on their side… But, if he actually wasn't, the portraits were supposed to serve him and could reveal things he shouldn't know… But Riddle hadn't found out about his missing Horcruxes yet, and all indications were that Dumbledore had never trusted anyone but Harry with that information…

It was an endless circle of what ifs and Harry couldn't find an end to it. And all the while, there was an expiration date hanging over the whole undertaking. Riddle could go to check on his hidden soul containers at any time. Yet, there were still probably months needed to prepare for Gringotts. Hermione hadn't even been able to start her Polyjuice brewing yet, and that was a month right there, minimum. They also still hadn't thought of a good way to get Sophie to Neville's vault. Neville was stuck at Hogwarts, and although they had discussed sneaking him out over a weekend, he would be going to Gringotts as himself; by necessity, without disguise or pretence. He couldn't be seen at the bank when he was supposed to be sick in his dormitory, so they seemed to have little choice but to wait for the winter hols.

Harry pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time: half-past ten in the morning. Scott and Lila had left not long before and were expected to be gone for most of the day, if not beyond. Ron and Ginny were with Hermione, aiding her in one of her many research projects. Their need for her magical acumen seemed to grow by the day, and Harry worried that she would eventually be overwhelmed. They had all been trying to make her pace herself. She would read herself ragged if left to her own devices.

In fact, all of the tasks had piled up to the point that Harry had been considering telling her to drop the problem of his own Horcrux. It wasn't going anywhere, hadn't for sixteen years, and the impossible problem of getting into Gringotts seemed to far outweigh any other current considerations. Harry was definitely eager to get rid of the poisonous soul fragment inside of him, but he still reckoned that it might kill him to do so. Better that he still be around to help with the other two, first.

And, yeah, that went against the Prophecy, but most of the time it was hard not to feel like it was pretty much bollocks (the source didn't help). Besides, if it all went pear-shaped, then whoever things fell to after Harry got snuffed would have an easier time of it if Riddle didn't have any extra lives.

Harry held the Elder Wand up again and made a face at it. So much for gaining a superweapon. “Bloody useless rubbish,” he muttered, setting the wand back down on the table by the door and leaving it there.

He stepped out in the hallway and very nearly drew his wand to cast a curse, because there was an unfamiliar man idling in front of the stairs. He remembered at the very last second that it was Primare DeLucca.

“Hey, Mr Potter!” DeLucca said with a smile, apparently not noticing how close he had come to being cursed. Harry glanced down at the sidearm on DeLucca's belt, and decided it was more likely that the Primare was too polite to call attention to Harry's momentary fright.

“Er, Primare,” Harry said stiffly. He'd never called Scott by his rank before. He rarely even thought of Scott as having a title.

“Just Cody is fine,” DeLucca said, smile never wavering.

Harry didn't really know what to make of Cody DeLucca. He was a wiry, dark-haired man of medium height with a wide face, pointed nose and olive complexion. He had been unfailingly friendly since his arrival, expressing his delight at the simplest of spells. He had an almost embarrassing enthusiasm for the workings of Harry's universe.

“I saw you were using that stick in there,” DeLucca said, sounding impressed. “Man, you really fragged that cup! Pretty cool, pret-ty cool.”

“Um, yeah. It's called a wand, it's how we cast our spells,” Harry told him.

“Right, a wand. You guys must have a blast with this magic quis, that's gotta be fun.”

Harry found himself nodding as he remembered his first year at Hogwarts, and how incredible magic had seemed then. Sometimes, it still did. “I like to fly, actually. We use broomsticks to play a sport called Quidditch. I played Seeker. It's, um, a position in the game.”

“Flying broomsticks,” DeLucca said, shaking his head admiringly. “How nuts is that? Hey, can you, like, just make things appear? Or disappear?”

“Yeah, we can do both. But there are a lot of rules about it.”

“Past the rim, man. We make these things called apertures, I don't know if Scott's showed you, but we have all kinds of rules about those, too.”

“I sort of saw one, once,” Harry said, thinking of the dreams. He looked past DeLucca towards the stairs. “Uh, I'm going to go up and see if they need help with all the research we've been doing.”

DeLucca immediately stepped aside. “Good luck, wizard!” he said, and Harry couldn't tell if he thought that was customary or if he was being sarcastic.

Upstairs he found everyone gathered yet again in Ron and Hermione's room. Sophie seemed to be fiddling with the mirrors whilst everyone else concentrated on the books. Even Kylie was there, curled up in a chair with a book of her own (though Harry wasn't sure if it was related to the research). It was taking more time to determine how to use the information than it had for Hermione to acquire it, although Harry suspected even she hadn't finished all the books. There were quite a few, and they were all very thick.

Sophie looked up when he entered. “Hi, Harry. You want to help me with this?”

“Sure, just tell me what to do,” Harry said, seating himself next to her.

“One moment,” Sophie sang whilst she finished whatever it was she was doing. “Have you talked to Cody at all?”

“Yeah, I've just seen him downstairs,” Harry said. “He wished me luck, but I couldn't tell if he was taking the piss.”

“He wouldn't take your… that,” Sophie said, wrinkling her nose.

“No, I mean, I didn't know if he was having me on.”

“I know! He wouldn't.”

“All right,” Harry said. He supposed Sophie would probably know. “He's a bit strange, isn't he?”

Sophie set her mirror down and fixed Harry with a direct look. “Now don't you start, too.”

Harry's eyes widened. “What? No, I'm not — he seemed all right…”

“He is so nice and he really admires integrationists like Scott and what they do, and Scott and Lila make fun of him _all_ the time,” Sophie said indignantly.

That sounded very plausible. DeLucca seemed exactly like the sort of sincere bloke who would make an easy target for the Kharans (or Fred and George). “I won't say anything to him,” Harry pledged.

“Good. You shouldn't be cruel just because you can,” Sophie said a bit self-importantly, reciting the sentence as if it were a life lesson she was allowing Harry to learn.

Sophie was usually one of the friendliest, most easy to get along with people that Harry had ever known, but sometimes she took on an almost haughty air, the automatic assumption of being in the right that came with privilege. It was reminiscent of a certain breed of pureblood he had often encountered. Sophie was never _that_ bad, of course, and had always assumed a stately demeanour that was far more kind and conscientious than Malfoy's sneering contempt, but it still served as a reminder of how little Harry really knew about her.

Of course, he didn't think he'd ever had much of a conversation with her before. “So are you really going to use that fake company on your CV if you look for a job?” he asked after watching her work for a few moments.

“Fake company?” she repeated curiously.

“Strauss Industries or whatever it was. The one Scott did the banner thing for,” Harry said, miming the same unveiling motion Scott had made.

“Oh,” Sophie said with a quick little smile, as if she were embarrassed. “I forgot about that.”

“I thought it was sort of funny,” Harry said, not sure what to make of her reaction.

“Ha ha, yeah. He's a goof. Now hold this, please,” she said handing him another mirror. “What does it look like if I do this?”

Harry looked into the mirror and beheld his own reflection. “It looks like me.”

“Hmmm.” Sophie shook her mirror slightly. “How about now?”

The mirror's surface abruptly went black. “Now I can't see anything.”

“Well, what the poop,” Sophie said exasperatedly. “That's not right.”

Harry handed his mirror back to her and waited to be useful again, a process that began to drag on. Sophie gradually seemed to forget he was even there. He glanced around the room, but no one else seemed to notice that he wasn't actually doing anything. Which was all right, from his perspective, but he did start to feel guilty around the ten-minute mark.

“Harry, are you busy?” Hermione asked from somewhere behind him.

“Not unless Sophie needs something,” he told her.

“Hmm? No, this thing isn't doing what it's supposed to,” Sophie said.

Harry moved over to where Hermione was leafing through an enormous book with yellowed pages and significant water damage on the cover. “Yeah?” he said, sitting next to her.

“You've always been referred to as the sole person to survive the Killing Curse,” Hermione said slowly, eyes still glued to the page. “I've wondered how that could be true; Lily Potter can't have been the only mother to ever sacrifice herself to protect her child.”

Harry hadn't ever given it much thought, but that made sense. “You'd think someone would have done it before.”

“Yes, although the Killing Curse wasn't always an Unforgivable. Back when it was more commonplace, perhaps surviving it wasn't enough of an oddity to make history.” Hermione pointed to a crude illustration. “This is from a woodcarving; it shows a person jumping in front of a curse to save another, and then the next curse rebounding on the caster.”

The lines of the image were difficult to make out, worn as the parchment was, but it did seem to be a crude representation of what Hermione described. “Huh. Then why was I always so special?”

“Well, you're special because of the Prophecy; or the shape, rather, but that's not common knowledge,” Hermione said. “The caster to which the spell backfired was, in your case, particularly infamous. I suppose that was enough to grant the moment legendary status.”

“They've always talked about it like I 'defeated' him,” Harry muttered. “I didn't do anything.”

“You survived. And he didn't, or so everyone thought. The real reasons for many things tend to be lost.” She gave him a sympathetic glance. “The wizarding world wanted a hero.”

“They'd have been better off with someone like Scott.”  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Firstly, you could easily be someone like Scott, had you more training and life experience. I would argue that you _are_ like Scott, in the ways that fundamentally make him as capable as he is. And secondly, it wouldn't be better for the Chosen One to practically be a Squib.”

“Scott's not a Squib, he's just…” Harry realised that he was on the wrong side of the argument. “He is a bit of a Squib.”

“I don't understand how someone can be a squib. A squib is what they use to make people look like they were shot in picture shows,” Sophie said, breaking into the conversation. “Unless you said squab? Were you calling him a chicken?”

“No, a Squib is someone born to a wizarding family who lacks magical ability,” Hermione explained.

Which wasn't a description of Scott, but his general lack of facility with a wand made the appellation not entirely inappropriate. “He's more like really strange Muggle,” Harry supposed.

“You have such weird names for things,” Sophie said inattentively, tapping her mirror with one hand. Then her eyes widened, and she looked up. “I'm sorry, that was rude.”

Harry shrugged. “I thought the same thing when I found out I was a wizard.”

“It was an adjustment,” Hermione agreed. “When I got my acceptance letter, I wasn't sure a school called 'Hogwarts' was any establishment I'd care to attend.”

“What should it be called? 'Lord Haughtybottom's Academy for Really Swotty Gits'?” Ron suggested.

“Oh, you grew up with it. It never sounded strange to you,” Hermione retorted.

Ginny hopped up from where she had been sitting and came over to Harry, getting a squawk from Ron in the process when she stepped on him. She flopped down onto Harry's lap. “I'll read the left page and you read the right,” she said, dropping her head back onto his shoulder.

“I don't think that will work,” Harry said.

“I don't really care, I just don't want to have to read both,” she sighed.

Harry focussed on her hair, glowing red and gold in the low light. “Maybe you lot should just drop it. We have too much to do for Gringotts to waste time trying to fix me.”

“It's not a waste!” she objected.

“It certainly isn't,” Hermione concurred. “We have to get rid of that Horcrux, Harry, Gringotts or not.”  
  
Harry had expected their reaction, but had felt compelled to make the suggestion. “I know. It just seems like a lot of effort right now.”

Ginny shifted in his lap, setting the book down and placing her hands on either side of his head, meeting his eyes. “Don't you give up,” she said quietly, so that only he could hear.

He rested his forehead against hers, hoping his eyes conveyed his response better than his words ever could. Ginny pressed a quick kiss to his mouth and then swivelled back to her book. He looked to his other friends, a bit embarrassed. Hermione had already resumed reading and Ron was determinedly ignoring what his sister and best friend were doing, but Sophie had been watching with a starry-eyed smile.

Not wanting to encourage that kind of attention, he quickly looked away. “Hermione, is there something I should read?” he asked.

She pulled herself away from the words and cast her gaze around the room. “Yes, I actually had something I set aside for you…” She located the tome a moment later and passed it to him. “I've marked the page already, it's an account of a ritual that I believe is similar to the one Wormtail performed. It would be helpful if you could read through it and note which parts are like what you saw.”

Harry had little desire to relive the memory, but he would do whatever he needed to. He read the page she had indicated; the ritual was described with spelling and syntax that he had difficulty understanding, though he eventually caught on. He'd thought it would be uncomfortable to read about an experience so similar to his own, but the odd language and written medium provided a distance that allowed him to approach the account with detachment. He felt more curious, than anything. He read through it three times, his attention falling on one passage in particular that he didn't fully understand:

**wen he reqyred the bloode  
** **frum her Phyal he poored  
** **that Essence wych cam frum  
** **the woman, held and blesed wythyn  
** **her mageckd Phyal  
** **wych he had enspelled for that  
** **purpus and the fynding of  
** **her corpus shud it wend**

“What the hell does that mean?” he muttered, reading it again.

“Are you having trouble? I know it's quite cryptic, I only skimmed that part before I set it aside for you,” Hermione said. “Some of it seemed almost unrelated; the author was a bit rambling.”

“This part, about the blood,” Harry said, holding the book towards Hermione and pointing at the passage. “It's someone else's, like with mine, but he didn't take it right from them. He did something else to it first, which isn't the same.”

Hermione frowned and took the book from him. “He didn't take it from them?” Harry watched as she read the passage. When comprehension dawned on her features, her eyes widened. “That's it!”

“It is?”

“Yes! Or, I think it is!” She set the book down excitedly. “Why didn't that occur to me? I've been going about this all wrong! We'll have to start over, practically, but it'll be worth it.”

“Does that mean we can stop reading?” Ginny said hopefully.

“Of course, there's no need for that now,” Hermione said absently, her mind obviously racing ahead. “I was trying to manufacture the proper connection when it's already been done. So we will have to start over. Not that we did much beyond research. I wonder if he knew, when he gave it to you…”

Ron and Ginny appeared very pleased considering they had just been told their efforts were worthless.

“When who gave me what?” Harry said.

“Not you — Ginny.”

“When who gave me what?” Ginny said.

“When Dumbledore gave you Harry's phylactery!” Hermione said with triumph in her eyes.

Harry should have known, really. It wouldn't be like Dumbledore to bequeath anything lacking meaning beyond the sentimental. It was probably only a matter of time before the Deluminator became crucial in some way.

Hermione placed her finger on the page Harry had read. “This ritual used a phylactery in place of several other elements. It makes sense: it's a magical artefact already tied to Harry's blood, and, in fact, containing it. In a way, it's a part of him.”

“Sort of sounds like a Horcrux,” Harry said uneasily.

She shook her head. “I worded that wrong. It's not literally a piece of you taken away, it's more like it's… _tied_ to you. The phylactery can be used to find you — though that's only efficient over short distances — and monitor your well-being, which I imagine was Dumbledore's intention in creating it. But just as the Weasleys are all connected to the same clock, so can we be connected to your mother's sacrifice.”

“Don't tell me we have to drink it,” Ron said.

“Nothing so crude. We won't be literally mixing our blood with his, only using it as a conduit, so to speak. Riddle took things a bit farther, but we aren't trying to duplicate his ritual, only its side effect.”

“You aren't going to break my gift, are you?” Ginny said, apparently hesitant to hand it over.

“I don't think so…” Hermione prevaricated.

Ginny sighed. “As long as it helps Harry.”

Hermione was already shifting books around, probably looking for one that she had set aside before. “It's our best chance, I only wish I'd thought of it before!”

Harry didn't blame her in the slightest. There was still so much to research and carry out that some things were bound to be lost in the shuffle; and, no matter how awful having a Horcrux inside of him was in concept, the fact remained that it was one of their least pressing problems. December was the deadline for Gringotts. They had to be ready.

***---~**~---*** 

Hermione carefully crushed the wormwood and then added it to her cauldron, slowly stirring it to ensure the proper mixture. Sleeping Draught wasn't an especially complicated potion and Harry, Ron and Ginny had all volunteered to assist in making the batches — even Kylie had quietly offered to try, and the girl had displayed a strong aptitude for the craft. But Hermione simply couldn't allow herself to step away from the procedure. There was too much at stake. She knew that she had probably hurt a few feelings in the process. It wouldn't be the first time her instinct for control had offended those close to her, and probably not the last, either. She ignored the pang of regret, continuing to stir. She could be sensitive later.

It had taken Lila and Sophie most of a month to obtain minor funding from Fred and George and all the necessary potion ingredients without the Order knowing. Hermione still wasn't completely sure that Lila hadn't just stolen the money from the twins. But what was done was done, and it had put the mission back on track, at least so far as supplies went. The Polyjuice was in a second cauldron salvaged from the attic of Grimmauld, old but still usable. Hermione's cauldron had thus far produced multiple batches of Sleeping Draught. She didn't know how much would be needed, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Scott had been testing the Draught for effectiveness when dispersed in a mist. It had proven to be far less potent than when directly ingested, but contact through the mouth, nose and eyes was capable of rendering a person unconscious for up to twenty minutes, depending on saturation. Hermione had refused to guarantee the safety of such usage, citing her lack of information on prior incidents. Scott had compensated by using Harry, Ginny and Ron (and, inadvertently, Kylie, who had once walked into a cloud of the Draught) as test subjects. As much as Hermione was glad he had ensured the misted potion wasn't overly harmful, his methods left a great deal to be desired.

Of course, the 'CS' gas grenades she had seen him unloading made whatever irritant properties the Draught might have more or less irrelevant. And she didn't even want to know what the flashbangs might do to a person, non-lethal or not. Really, the less she knew what was going to happen in the bank lobby, the easier her conscience would rest. Too bad ignorance wasn't an option.

So she continued to brew the Sleeping Draught that she knew would be used to commit violent armed robbery and tried to think less about that and more about how they were going to get to that point. Sophie was doing her best to learn many of the basic countermeasures goblins and wizards had used to guard their wealth for centuries, including several specific spells that Bill had singled out as being common to Gringotts. No one but the goblins knew exactly how all of Gringotts defences functioned, but Bill's insights had still been a good place to start. The real test would come once Neville could take Sophie to the Longbottom vault. It was that trip which would either give them the last pieces needed to make the plan work, or crush the very core of their mission.

There was still one very important missing piece, however. No one knew which vault belonged to Bellatrix, and the goblins weren't likely to volunteer the information. Short of stumbling across some sort of ledger during the actual mission itself, they'd yet to come up with a way to discover the vault number without tipping their hand.

Hermione felt as if they were missing an avenue of possibility. Her inability to determine what form that possibility took was driving her to distraction. Kylie had already been asked if she'd overheard Bellatrix telling Riddle her vault number. Kylie hadn't, and despite Scott's gentle questioning had no further information to offer. Unfortunate, though not unexpected. Lila had made some additional inquiries with Trevor's mother, but she knew very little of the vaults. As a human clerical employee, the woman's knowledge primarily concerned the ins and outs of Gringotts' front end business, the numbers and procedures for exchanging and tracking money.

The last thing Hermione wanted to do was admit to the possibility that there simply wasn't any way to discover the Lestrange vault number quietly. Taking the information by force from whatever likely target could be located would be the first major compromise in the security of the mission. Nothing they had done so far, none of the people they had tangentially involved, could directly trace their curiosity to the Lestrange vault or Horcruxes. Putting the Imperius Curse on some hapless goblin would be a major liability.

Hermione had already considered the darker options, because she knew that it was only a matter of time before Scott brought one or two of them up to the rest of the group. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that they might capture a goblin to be held as a prisoner in Grimmauld Place. The risks and logistical considerations made such an act less than ideal, but Hermione worried it might soon be all that was left to them.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Ginny appeared in the doorway.

Hermione sighed, thinking she had lost track of time. “Is it time for supper already?”

“I've had an idea,” Ginny said, beckoning.

Curious, Hermione decided she could let the potion simmer for a bit more (the Sleeping Draught was forgiving, as potions went). She followed Ginny to the drawing room and over to the broom cupboard where they had once found the box of rubbish Molly Weasley had stored. The space housed a new item, the Black family tapestry.

“I'm surprised Kreacher hasn't rescued it yet,” Hermione remarked. Sophie, tired of tiptoeing past the portrait near the front door, had taken Mrs Black off the wall and stored her in a different cupboard. The portrait had disappeared afterwards, almost certainly taken to Kreacher's den.

“You think it's because Scott spends so much time in here? Harry said Kreacher was afraid of him. Or his guns, anyway,” Ginny said. She bent down and spread out the rumpled tapestry. “So, I was looking at the board and thinking about the vault numbers. I know only the goblins know where all the vaults are, but the numbers aren't very secret.”

“They give the numbers to the owners of the vault, and don't prevent visitors from seeing them,” Hermione said, recalling how Harry had been allowed to stand outside Vault 713 when Hagrid had gone there. “But who would know it? I doubt Bellatrix had many confidantes, even before she spent all that time in Azkaban.”

“What about her sister?” Ginny said, and she put her finger on the small, burned hole that had once been the visage of Andromeda Tonks.

Hermione forgave herself for not remembering Bellatrix's sister Andromeda, if only because she didn't have any more time for self-castigating. She mulled over the possibility, considering the likelihoods. “It's hard to say. I doubt they were ever close, considering how far their ideology has diverged. I don't know the exact date when Bellatrix married into the Lestrange family. If they weren't completely estranged from each other at that point…”

“I thought it'd be worth asking,” Ginny opined.

“You know who else we might ask? Kreacher!” Hermione exclaimed. “He's been here for years and Bellatrix was a Black. He may have overheard something.”

“He won't want to tell us.”

“He won't have a choice, if it's Harry asking,” Hermione said grimly. She loathed the thought of taking advantage of the bonds that house-elves suffered under. But, if the cause demanded it…

Ginny stood decisively. “I'll see if Sophie will let me use her mobile to call Lila. You want to tell Harry about Kreacher?”

Hermione glanced back towards the door, thinking of her still-bubbling potions. “I'll bring it up with him later. We can discuss it over supper; Harry will have to word things very carefully with Kreacher.”

“I'll put his filthy little head up on the wall myself if he tries to betray Harry again,” Ginny asserted.

Hermione sighed. “He doesn't know any better, Ginny. He's been a slave his entire life.”

Ginny didn't offer any direct retort, though her expression remained unsympathetic. “I'll find Sophie,” she said, turning to leave.

Hermione tried not to resent Kreacher, twisted as he was by a lifetime of abuse. He was exactly what the Black family had made him. She still thought that Sirius, as much as she had liked him, had brought Kreacher's actions upon himself, considering his poor treatment of the house-elf. It wasn't something Harry cared to believe about his departed godfather, but it was the truth. Hermione, despite her desire to rehabilitate Kreacher, had been content with his avoidance of them because she felt that Harry would probably only follow in Sirius's footsteps when it came to interacting with Kreacher. Harry wasn't especially cruel by nature, but he did blame Kreacher for Sirius's death, and Kreacher's general demeanour didn't make things any easier.

Deep in thought, she moved to return to her potion making when Scott entered the room with Kylie behind him, another board game tucked under his arm. “—so keep that in mind,” he was saying.

“It sounds fun,” Kylie said in an unsure tone.

“You would think. I'm not sure I've ever gone much past actually setting up the board, that's like half the game right there,” Scott said, putting the game (which was labelled 'Mouse Trap') down on the table.

Kylie opened the box and began extracting a bewildering array of pieces from it. She had such a serious expression on her face that Hermione had to fight not to laugh.

“Join us?” Scott offered to Hermione.

“Thank you, but I've potions to attend to,” she told him. “Have fun with your game. It looks… very intricate.”

“Kylie will figure it out. Right, Kylie?”

Kylie nodded shortly, extremely intent as she carefully separated each colourful piece and arranged them on the table.

“Well. I'll leave you to it,” Hermione said.

“Hey, when are those potions going to be on autopilot?” Scott called after her. “I want to get you and Harry behind the wheel.”

Hermione thought about it. “I'll be finished with the Sleeping Draught by tomorrow. The afternoon?”

“Cool. There's gotta be somewhere around here we can practice.”

***---~**~---*** 

“Now, as you can see,” Scott said, sliding a pair of silver aviator glasses over his eyes, “when I wear these, I look awesome. And when you look really cool, you probably drive better. So try to imagine you're wearing sunglasses like these. You won't look as cool as me, obviously, but everyone has to start somewhere.”

“I'd be interested in seeing some statistics,” Hermione said, unimpressed.

“Why can't I just use yours?” Harry asked, reaching for Scott's glasses.

Scott slapped his hand away. “Harry, if I let you have my aviators, you'd just be leeching off my masculine charisma instead of developing some lesser version of your own. And what kind of lesson would that be?”

“I don't know, but all I'm learning right now is that you're a twat,” Harry said reasonably.

Scott pointed out the windscreen. “Just put it in drive and try not to kill us.”

When seeking a location in which to practice, it had quickly become apparent that there was no such thing as an empty car park in London. Or, if there was, they didn't know where to find it. So Scott had driven them further out into the surrounding area, where the suburban landscape offered more room to manoeuvre.

Harry inexpertly applied pressure to the accelerator and the car lurched forward. He knew he was gripping the wheel harder than he needed to, but he still felt like the vehicle was controlling him instead of the other way around. The unwieldy hunk of metal was nowhere near as responsive or intuitive as a broom. He'd been at the wheel for about fifteen minutes whilst Hermione impatiently awaited her turn. During that time, he'd learned to very slowly steer around the handful of other cars parked nearby, and not much else.

“Pick it up a little when we're on the straightaway,” Scott suggested. “Try switching to the brake a few times first, you don't want to miss that.”

Scott had been a pretty decent instructor when it came to teaching Harry the ins and outs of combat tactics and firearms, but, much like his hand to hand lessons, his car lessons were rather lacking. Or maybe the best way to learn was by doing. Harry didn't really know, but Scott had been light on the technical details and heavy on the, 'press the pedal and go that way'.

Scott's sparse instructions halted for a moment when he reached into a pocket and pulled out his mobile, glancing at it. He straightened his shirt and affected a pose of cool indifference before answering. Harry had never considered vanity to be one of Scott's vices, but the aviators seemed to be encouraging a new side of him.

“Yeah?” Scott said. Harry couldn't make out anything from the other end, but Scott frowned after a moment. “Just him? …Okay, we're on our way back. That's fine, he wants to talk to Harry, we'll let him talk to Harry. Don't push him. Bye.”

“We're going back?” Hermione asked, her head poking into the front of the car.

“Lupin just showed up, apparently. He wants to talk to Harry.” Scott hit the release on his seatbelt. “Here, put it in park and switch out. I'll drop you guys off at the front, just let me know when it's clear.”

“I know you want to maintain what's left of your cover, but disappearing every time we have company is also suspicious,” Hermione said.

“It's easier than ageing down.” Scott exited the vehicle and walked around the back to get in the driver's seat, exchanging a high five with Harry as they passed each other at the car boot. “The time might come when I don't have a choice,” he continued, settling into place behind the wheel, “but why rush things?”

“Remus wants to talk to me?” Harry said.

“Sounds like it. It must be important, obviously he's not gonna trust Sophie much but I guess it's not something he wants to discuss with Ron or Ginny, either.”

Harry felt a pinch of worry. Hermione must have seen his expression change in the mirror, because she said, “If it had to do with the Order, I'm sure we would have heard from Lila.”

That didn't really help, because that meant the problem might be personal. “Maybe,” Harry said noncommittally.

Traffic slowed their return to Islington, Harry becoming more agitated with every passing second. Too much time to think meant too many awful scenarios for him to ponder.

Scott brought the car as close to the kerb as possible when they arrived at Grimmauld Place. Harry and Hermione hopped out and quickly entered the protective safety of the Fidelius Charm. There had still been no sign of any Death Eaters nearby, no indications that Riddle had discovered even the general area they had been hiding. From a purely practical standpoint it wasn't all that surprising; London was a big place, and they didn't stand out with their Muggle clothing and nondescript vehicle. But magic could be tricky, Harry had learned. The Fidelius hadn't kept his parents safe, after all. It wasn't the only precaution to be taken.

Harry moved very carefully through the door until he remembered that Mrs Black's portrait was gone. There was a lighter-coloured patch on the wall where the portrait had hung for however many years it had been. Sophie had mentioned a desire to repaint the house a few times, but whatever plans she'd had for more in-depth renovations had been pushed aside by her primary work.

Ginny was waiting for them. “He's downstairs,” she said to Harry, pointing. “He said he wanted to talk to just you, first.”

“Did he say why?” Harry asked.

Ginny shook her head. “No. He looks a bit peaked, though.”

Hermione frowned. “When was the full moon? Does anyone know?”

Harry shrugged. “When was the last time any of us were even outside at night?”

“This place could do with some blimming windows,” Ginny said.

“I'm sure Sophie agrees. Don't keep Professor Lupin waiting, Harry. And do tell us what's happening, if you can,” Hermione said.

The kitchen was always a bit surprising for Harry; he'd become so accustomed to the dark, grimy state of the place from his previous stay that walking down into a well-lit, properly organised and nearly spotless version of the kitchen was an odd transition. Sophie couldn't work miracles, and much of the woodwork and other materials bore marks and stains that couldn't be undone, but with the grime removed and the lights restored such small imperfections seemed more like signs of use than decay. Grimmauld Place had gone from looking abandoned to merely lived-in. The décor was still bloody awful, though.

Remus had seated himself at the table, and met Harry with a tired smile. “Harry,” he said, standing in greeting.

“Is something wrong?” Harry said quickly, bypassing politeness in his need to know.

“No. Or… I'm not certain. I was hoping you might help,” Remus said haltingly.

“I'll do whatever I can,” Harry said, wishing he could promise more.

Remus rubbed at his jaw, his body tense. “The full moon was last week.”

Harry blinked, unsure of the point. “Oh. Did you… Do you need somewhere safer to stay? We could do something with the attic, probably, or one of the rooms—”

“No, no. I didn't come to ask for that.” Remus chuckled ruefully. “I'd hoped that my mentioning the full moon might prompt you. But I suppose that would have been too easy. It seems you're as in the dark as I am.”

“Probably more,” Harry said.

“Yes, sorry. I'll be blunt, then: the past two months, I haven't changed during the full moon. This was the second month without a transformation. None of the side effects, none of the signs… Nothing. I sit there whilst the moon rises and falls and the next morning, it's…” Remus trailed off. “I hadn't seen the full moon with my own eyes since I was a boy. It's been twice, now.”

Harry was astounded. “How is that possible?”

Remus shook his head, sagging back into his chair. “I don't know. I'd thought you might. I came here not long before the full moon in September and it was the only thing I could think of that was unusual.”

“We're not doing anything with werewolves, nothing like that. I don't… I mean, you've been here before, so it's not the house. It's not me.” He scoffed at himself. “It's not _me—_ what would that even mean, how could it be me. I…”  
  
Harry suddenly thought about Remus's choice of words. _Unusual_ , he had said. Grimmauld Place was unusual, all right, but not because of any strange magic. More like a different kind of magic altogether, in the form of three Kharadjai. And Remus had been in contact with Lila, quite a bit. He hadn't seen Scott since The Burrow, but he had seen Sophie… What if Scott had asked one of them to—

Harry stopped that line of thought quickly. There was no point in getting angry again before he had some actual confirmation. He'd had it out with Scott over the Kharadjai's secrets several times, but he'd thought that the two of them had made some real progress. Scott wouldn't have mucked with Remus without telling Harry. Harry had to believe that, at least until proven otherwise. Maybe Remus' sudden recovery from an incurable curse had nothing to do with Kharadjai at all.

Though the more Harry considered that, the less likely it seemed. Lycanthropy had resisted all permanent forms of treatment for the entirety of wizarding history, that was what Harry had been taught. But Remus had come in contact with some people who stood very much outside of that history.

Harry began to back away. “You know what, give me a moment to ask around.”

Remus started to stand, shaking his head. “No, that's all right. I knew you wouldn't have anything to do with this, I just didn't know who else to ask.”

“Just in case, though,” Harry said hurriedly. “I'm not the only one here, maybe somebody else did something on accident or, er, saw something. I should ask.”

Remus gave Harry a strange look, but sat back down. “If you think it might help.”

“I'll be right back,” Harry told him, and went up the stairs as fast as he could without running.

There were voices coming from the drawing room. Inside, Hermione and Ginny were huddled with Kylie on the settee. Kylie had a piece of parchment she was writing on as the two older girls instructed her. The lesson actually sounded familiar; Harry thought it was something from second-year Charms.

“Have you seen Sophie?” he asked them.

Hermione looked up. “No, not recently. What's going on?”

“I'm not sure, I just need to find her,” Harry said, ducking back out of the room.

The door to the hallway loo was closed and the light was on. Harry knocked on it. “Sophie?”

“Not bloody likely,” Ron called back.

“Well, have you seen her?”

“I think she's gone upstairs, to Scott's room,” Ron said.

Good, then she hadn't gone shopping, which had been Harry's fear. He hurried up the steps to the motorcycle room, hoping that Remus would stay put. The last thing they needed was for him to see what was in the drawing room.

Sophie was indeed in the motorcycle room, talking to herself as she made Scott's bed. “This is the last time, for sure the last,” she muttered, setting pillows against the headboard. “I know he thinks I'll keep doing this because I can't help it, but I can stop whenever I want. I don't _have_ to clean.”

“Sophie!” Harry said, gaining her attention. “Did you do something to Remus?”

She placed her hands on her hips. “Well, hello to you too, Harry. What kind of question is that?”

Harry glanced back down the hall, then moved closer to her. “Remus didn't change this month or the last, something happened to him. He doesn't know why, but I thought you might.”

Sophie combed an absent hand through her curls. “He didn't change what?”

“Into a werewolf. He's a werewolf and there's no cure, but the last two times he didn't change. That's never happened before,” Harry explained. “You knew he was, right?”

Sophie pursed her lips. “…Maybe?”

Harry stared at her. “What, you didn't know?”

“I think Scott mentioned it,” Sophie said uncertainly. “He said it wasn't important…”

“It's not, usually,” Harry said impatiently. “Did Scott say anything about curing Remus?”

“No, definitely not. We're not equipped to cure diseases, we'd have to ask for something like that.”

“Yeah, but it's magical, Lycanthropy is a curse.”

Sophie's eyes went wide. _“Attatae!_ Oh, geez! Why didn't you tell me before I blanked him?!” She paused. “…Or is this a good thing?”

“Wait, what did you do?”

“When we met in the park, I got rid of all the spells on him. Remember? I took his hand to make sure.”

Harry did remember, now that she'd said that. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, though he should have. “That's right. That must have done it.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Sophie said conspiratorially, hands twisting at her waist.

Harry didn't have an answer for her. What the bloody hell was he going to do? Remus had carried his curse for most of his life, and a cure had been nothing but an impossible fantasy. How could Harry not tell him that he was free? But, how could Harry say anything without revealing more about the Kharadjai than he should?

 _“Can_ I tell him?” Harry asked Sophie. “What would that do, does it still even matter?”

“I don't know! Not here, but he's outside, and it might change things for Lila,” Sophie said.

Harry hadn't thought of her. “That's right. The Order doesn't know much about her.”

“If she's been fighting, then they have to know _something…”_

“So you think it's all right?”

Sophie shook her head. “That's not up to me, we have to ask Scott. I'll call him.” She pulled out her mobile and pressed a button, bringing it up to her ear. “…Scott? This is Sophie. …I know you know that, I'm being polite! What? So? I— I know it's the same, always, that's what we do, we say the… I say it's me and then you're all 'bleh bleh I know' and I say— isn't— isn't that what we do? Sometimes friends have a thing, it can be cute. …No one cares but us, it doesn't have to be very funny! …Harry has a question. Here you go.” She handed the mobile to Harry.

“Scott?” Harry said.

“So what's the deal?” Scott said. His voice was a bit muffled by the constant rush of cars in the background.

“Remus is here because he's not a werewolf anymore, and we think it's because Sophie accidentally cured him when he came 'round the first time,” Harry quickly summarised. “What should I do?”

“Oh, shit. So obvious in hindsight.” Scott paused. “You know what? This could be good for us. Didn't you tell me Lupin was trying to keep the werewolves from joining Riddle?”

Harry didn't remember telling Scott that, but obviously either he or someone else had. “Yeah, he was, and Hagrid was recruiting the giants. That was before we lost the Ministry, though, I don't know if anyone is still trying that sort of thing.”

“Well, now we have a cure. You think Riddle can beat that offer?”

Harry hesitated. “Yeah, but how do you explain that cure?”

“It doesn't matter. We're past the point of no return, we can't hold back. I'm out here because changing age was inconvenient — and because Hermione has all my teen clothes — not because it really matters if Lupin sees something weird. I gave Lil discretion, she's not talking because she doesn't want to. Sometimes it's easier to have people think you're enigmatic instead of crazy.”

Harry rubbed at his right eye, considering the enormity of the revelation. “Maybe you should go explain it all again.”

“I don't need to. That's what I'm trying to tell you, the evidence speaks for itself. Why did you let me hang around at first?”

Harry started to say it had been because Dumbledore had vouched for Scott, but that was only a small part of the truth. “Because I thought you were a harmless nutter and I needed all the help I could get.”

“And why did you let me hang around continually?”

“Because you kicked Malfoy's arse and could block spells. And seemed to know a lot about hurting people.”

“Exactly. Whatever else she is, Lil's already proven to be a very sharp weapon in the Order's arsenal. Now they'll know just how deep she can cut.”

“All right. So we're doing this,” Harry said, girding himself.

“You don't have to be specific. Just tell him Sophie is the reason he'll no longer attract furries and Lila can do the same thing for other werewolves.”

“I'm not doing anything without you to back me up, I want you sitting there as some kind of proof. And maybe block a spell or something,” Harry added.

Scott sighed. “Age regression is irrelevant, he doesn't need to know we can do that.”

“But if you can do that, what else can you do? Come on, it'll make it easier to believe.”

There came a long pause from Scott's end. “…I see what you're saying, but I'm debating whether I want it to be known that I'm an adult before we hit the bank. Up until this point there's been no real connection between me and that blond kid you went to school with.”

Harry frowned, trying to follow Scott's logic. “And?”

“If either me or Lil are identified somehow at the bank, we need the connection to you to be tenuous at best. It's likely that Lil is already known to the enemy in some capacity, between what happened at Hogwarts and the wedding. But she still has to go because I can't do it alone; I actually think we're going in Polyjuiced, too, I asked Sophie to source some extras. Precautions or not, things can happen. I don't want anyone to make a connection to you.”

“It's Remus, not the enemy,” Harry said.

“Yeah? If the Order is that tight of a ship, then why not tell them what we're really looking for?”

Harry grimaced. “Point taken.”

“Look, I'm not saying it wouldn't smooth things over, but why don't we let Lil do the heavy lifting? She's the one you're putting on the spot, anyway.”

Which hadn't been Harry's intention, though it did seem to be an inevitability. “Fine. Just talk to her first, all right? Don't let her get surprised by all this. I don't want her to choke me.”

“Well, she'd come for me, first. I'll call her.”

Harry handed the mobile back to Sophie once the conversation had finished, lost in thought. It seemed he would be giving Remus the barest amount of truth required and leaving the rest to Lila. She had proven to be quite capable of revealing almost nothing despite the pressures put upon her, but her approach was about to be forced to change. Harry hoped he wasn't about to ruin Lila's relationship with the Order. Whether they knew it or not, they needed her there.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Sophie offered.

“No, I'll do it,” Harry said, turning away. “Somehow.”

Sophie followed him back downstairs, and when he descended into the kitchen she stopped and whispered, “I'll be right here, for support! You can call me, if you need it…”

Remus was still waiting patiently in his chair; he looked up when Harry came in, eyebrows rising in silent question.

“Sorry that took so long,” Harry awkwardly apologised. “There was… a bit more to it than I'd thought.”

“It gave me time to realise how ridiculous I was to even bring this to you,” Remus said with a self-deprecating shrug. “I've been so desperate for an answer…”

Harry took a deep breath. “I've got one for you, actually. It was Sophie who cured you.”

Remus stilled. He stared at Harry incredulously. “Sophie? The woman I met at the park?”

“Yeah, that's her. The short one,” Harry said, and he thought he heard a huff of exasperation from the stairwell behind him.

“But _how?”_

“Er, well…” Harry fidgeted, trying to find the right words to simplify things. “It was an accident, sort of. When she shook your hand, she was trying to make sure it was really you, so she, um… cancelled all the magic on you. It was just a thing she was doing for safety, but she didn't know you were cursed.”

Remus squinted, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, she cancelled the magic? If _Finite Incantatem_ worked for magical diseases we'd have all been cured ages ago, and there's no counter-curse.”

“No, it's…” Harry clenched his jaw, frustrated by his inability to think of the perfect way to phrase the revelation. He suddenly empathised with Scott. “It's not that kind of magic. It's something that she can do, she can break spells, just snuff them out.”

Remus was silent as he digested that. “…How is that possible?” he said eventually, in a tone that conveyed his disbelief.

“I don't know, exactly, but that's not important,” Harry said, deciding not to attempt assembling the varied scraps of information he had on the shape into any kind of real explanation. “Sophie's been a lot of help to us. The first time you came around, she was trying to make sure it was really you by getting rid of any magic you had. She wasn't trying to cure you… It was an accident.”

“How does one _accidentally_ cure lycanthropy?” Remus said sceptically.

“She just gets rid of all of it, it doesn't matter what it is. She probably made Bill's hand on the clock fall off when he came over.” Harry frowned. “How did you think Ginny was doing anything if she still had the Trace?”

“You're under a Fidelius, the Trace could only bring the Ministry to the general area. We thought she was staying here to be with you,” Remus said a bit uncomfortably.

Harry's eyes widened. The Order thought that Ginny had tagged along just to… What? Snog him? Of course, that also meant the Weasleys had thought Ginny to be at least relatively safe. If Mrs Weasley had been so opposed before, what would she think if she found out that Ginny had been on the front line for every lethal excursion Harry's group had undertaken?

“Er, you don't have to tell Mrs Weasley that Ginny doesn't have the Trace… Right?” Harry ventured.

Remus sighed. “Harry, I'm not sure what I'm going to tell anyone. I don't understand how Sophie can break curses with a touch.”

“I don't either, really,” Harry admitted. “It has to do with who she is and where she comes from.”

“Which is?”

Harry shook his head, giving Remus an apologetic look. “Lila can explain it better, you should talk to her. It's not just because I don't want to, I really won't tell it very well. There's a lot I don't know.”

“Can't I talk to Sophie, then?” Remus pressed.

Harry hesitated. “Well…”

“I'm trying to understand, but you aren't making it easy.”

“Talk to Lila,” Harry said, feeling like that was the best course of action. “And if you still have more questions after that or you think she's not telling you the truth, come see me again.”

Remus didn't look very happy with that answer. “Very well,” he said reluctantly, standing to leave. “I'll speak with her.”

“I'm sorry. I know I wasn't much help,” Harry said. “Lila will be able to show you; I can't do that.”

Harry felt bad about essentially pawning Remus off on Lila, but it wasn't like the Kharadjai didn't bring this sort of them upon themselves. Scott's reluctance to give clear answers during his year at Hogwarts had caused all kinds of problems. Admittedly, even the eventual answers had been problematic, as well. They weren't much good when no one could fully understand them.

At the very least, delaying Remus would give Harry time to talk to Scott some more. If the Order was going to receive more information, it should be decided beforehand what that information would be.


	35. Birds in Winter

**35**

**Birds in Winter**

\---

 _“An integrationist seeks to assume whatever_  
 _interpersonal role will best suit the tasks at hand_  
 _and allow them to interact with their Primes_  
 _most efficiently. But the boundaries of_  
 _relationships in sapient species are fluid,_  
 _even if limited by social or religious strictures._  
 _Remember that it is more important to give_  
 _your Primes the guidance they need than it is_  
 _to adhere to your self-defined role. If a younger_  
 _Prime seeks advice from you on matters outside_  
 _the UO, answer to the best of your ability. You_  
 _shouldn’t hesitate to build a friendship that exists_  
 _separate from the mission, and will almost_  
 _certainly find that such bonds are helpful_  
 _in more task-oriented situations, as well: Trust_  
 _is multifaceted. (Note that a parental role is_  
 _typically not recommended: See Section 5)”_  


_—_ The Guiding Light: An Integrationist’s Guide to Understanding Primes,  
Chapter II: Presenting Yourself

\---

Harry collapsed onto his back, sweat dripping down his jaw. “I can’t do it,” he gasped.

“Come on. One more,” Scott prodded.

Harry shook his head. “There’s no way.”

“Do it, you pussy.”

Eyes closed, Harry released a long, exhausted breath. “Do it yourself.”

“That would defeat the purpose, Harry.”

“Yeah? You see this?” Harry lifted one limp, sweat-sheened arm. “The purpose has defeated me. So get me a water or sod off.”

Scott rolled his eyes. He retreated for a moment, and then returned. Harry blinked when the shadow of Scott’s arm crossed over his eyes. He had just enough time to see the water bottle Scott was holding out before it was released at considerable height.

“Oof!” The bottle landed right on Harry’s stomach with a hollow, watery smack. He bent his legs upward in a reflexive and entirely-too-late attempt to protect himself. “Really?!”

“Ask, and ye shall receive,” Scott drawled.

Harry rolled off the bench, picking the bottle up in the process. “Wanker,” he bit out before taking a swig.

Sophie had somehow acquired a bench press, as well as a few assorted free weights. Harry hadn’t asked where she’d found them, but they were in used condition. Everyone had been making use of them at Scott’s insistence. No one had been using them more than Harry, though. He had discovered that he liked benching weight. It provided a sort of expression of masculinity that Harry hadn’t even known he’d wanted. He felt cool doing it. He felt like he was in the middle of a training montage.

He also liked what it was doing to his arms. After nearly a month of regular lifting, he had gone to take a shower and instead spent more time than he’d ever admit prodding his newly defined biceps and pectorals. After being thin his entire life, it was quite the novelty to put on even a little bulk. He was nowhere near Scott’s level of musculature, but he felt like he could be, eventually, and that was encouraging.

“So how long will it take me to really put on some muscle?” Harry asked, taking another drink.

“Long enough that you shouldn’t worry about it. You can look forward to that after we win,” Scott said. Harry watched, a bit depressed, as Scott plucked the weighted barbell off its perch on the bench posts with a single hand and placed it on the floor against the wall. It had taken all the effort Harry could muster to lift that thing.

The past month had been largely dedicated to preparations; and at last, when November had turned into December, the number of tasks still left to accomplish had begun to dwindle. There had been so many things required to come together to ensure even the slightest chance of success, but, slowly, they were becoming ready. Lila had come through yet again, using her Order connections to contact Tonks’s mother. A short, clandestine exchange of letters later and the number for the Lestrange vault was theirs. Andromeda Tonks had needed a Memory Potion, but the recollection had been there; it was lucky that Bellatrix was so boastful.

“So…” Scott paused to take a dramatic drink from his own bottle of water. “Looks like we’re about ready to cross the Rubicon.”

“The what?” Harry said.

“The Rubicon. Crossing the Rubicon, passing the point of no return.”

“I don’t know what a Rubicon is.”

“Really? It’s a river in Italy. Julius Caesar crossed it with his army, thereby starting some serious shit. Read a book, man.”

“I have been. And it’s bloody boring,” Harry retorted.

“I mean a good book.”

“Just let me catch my breath and I’ll have another go at that,” Harry said, indicating the barbell.

“No, I think you’ve had enough,” Scott said, assessing Harry’s state.

That was a bit rich from the man that had been calling Harry a pussy the minute before. “Fine. I’m going to have a shower. You… do whatever. Look at the shape and go all dreamy.”

“The uneducated mock what they do not understand,” Scott sighed.

“It’s not like you ever go out of your way to _help_ me understand,” Harry muttered, throwing his empty water bottle in the general direction of the rubbish bin.

“Are you for real? I’ve talked about the shape before. I even did a whole complicated analogy on the drive to Hogwarts. Without a single ‘thank you’, I might add.”

“Doesn’t mean it made things any clearer,” Harry retorted.

“What don’t you understand?”

“Where to even start?” Harry said rhetorically. “How about the Prophecy? When we first met, you were talking like it was my actual destiny since I’m supposed to be the ‘Chosen One’ and all that bollocks, but ever since then you’ve said everything’s random.”

“That’s a simplification. I’ve used certain words for the purposes of making things manageable, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best fit.”

“All right, so don’t bother anymore. Do I have a destiny or not?”

“In order to understand that, first you have to—”

“No, just answer the question,” Harry said, cutting him off. “Don’t go off in another direction, don’t tell me I won’t understand the answer, I just want to know. You talked about fate—”

“About the _shape_ , I use fate for illustration, for convenience—” Scott began.

“—and how I’m a Prime and we all are and we never had any choice in this, we’ve been chosen. I’m the effing Chosen One, apparently. But Dumbledore... He told me the Prophecy is true because Riddle made it true. In believing it, in... in coming after me, he marked me, he picked me, he _made_ me his enemy.”

“You would have been his enemy regardless.”

“But not _the_ enemy. You said the Prophecy is just written destiny, but that means Dumbledore was wrong, is that it? Have I been trapped since I was born?”

“That implies this started when you were born, but it would be more accurate to say you were born because this started.”

“But… Okay, so I really am some sort of Chosen One, then.”

“Chosen in the sense that you’re intended to address a problem, lacking the more mystical tones that ‘Chosen One’ implies. You’re ‘chosen’ the way you choose a neighbourhood kid to mow your lawn, or a plumber to fix your shitter.”

“…Riddle is just a stubborn clog, then?” Harry said with a smirk.

“Yeah, basically.”

“Then why didn’t the shape pick someone with experience or better tools, why not Dumbledore?”

“Don’t get too attached to the word ‘chose’. Maybe I should have said, ‘arrived at’. It’s a mistake to think of the shape as a rational or self-contained intelligence. If it is intelligent, then it’s in a way that has no known equivalent,” Scott explained. “The reasons behind your nomination aren’t the kind that can be known to us because the nature of the shape in its entirety isn’t known to us. To put it another way, we can conjecture that the shape, like water, ‘chooses’ the path of least resistance, but it’s not apparent why that path would lead to you. So whatever theory we might apply, it inevitably fails to account for the end result. We don’t understand the process.”

“I’m not feeling very un-resisted,” Harry commented.

Scott nodded. “The fallacy here is probably the assumption that the shape has a ‘logic’ that corresponds to any we recognise, in this case the physical properties of water. Water doesn’t ‘choose’ to follow the path of least resistance, it has no capacity for reason. It’s just adhering to the physics of fluid dynamics. The shape obeys its own nature. To the extent we understand it at all, it didn’t pick your name out of a hat or deliberately choose you from a variety of other options.”

“So I’m _not_ the Chosen One,” Harry concluded.

“Not in the sense the people who gave you that appellation intended, no. Not any more than a tree struck by lightning is ‘chosen’. The lightning had reasons for hitting that tree, but it didn’t ‘choose’ to do so. Unlike the tree, however, you actually have an active part in the process.”

“You still didn’t answer my question. You always get distracted,” Harry pointed out. “Never mind how I got to be in the mess I’m in, am I still fated to fight Riddle?”

“Yes and no.”

Harry tossed his hands up in frustration. “That’s not an effing answer!”

Scott frowned. “Yes it is. Maybe not the one you wanted, but—”

“Mate, come on, don’t be a prick.”

“I’m not!” Scott protested.

Harry begged to differ. “Then how can it be chance _and_ be fated?”

“I think I’ve explained this; all known universes are non-deterministic, though the shape still has workings and objectives that can resemble concepts like fate. But these are pre-determined only in the sense that any plan is, with safeguards. Imagine a train: a train runs along a set path, connected to an established system of rails. But that doesn’t mean the train isn’t capable of going _off_ those rails.”

“Which would be a train wreck,” Harry noted.

“Mmm-hmm.” Scott raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re getting it.”

Harry mulled that over. “So it’s not really… It’s not really _both_ , it’s more like the shape wants it to be this way… but we don’t always get what we want.”

“The destination is _preferred_. You walk the path, you reach the end, where you put your feet and what happens at the finish line depends on what you do and what you’ve done, causality, probability, semi-deterministic in the sense it is favoured and enacted,” Scott said, speaking quickly, seemingly excited by Harry’s comprehension. “Riddle believed the Prophecy, he chose you, but you would have been there anyway! You could win, you could lose, live, die, succeed, fail, pick a side of the coin and watch it roll across the floor; you believed in the Prophecy, he believed in the Prophecy, you’ve lost faith, and so things might change. Causation and endless, formless, infinite permutation with every fistful of the quantum dice. You were picked, you were made to deal with this. Could it be someone else? In another probability, sure. In a bad future, yes. If Dumbledore thought Prophecies can be voided then it’s because he understood something very basic about the shape: it is not and will never be static. The question, Harry, has never been whether it’s possible to break your predestination. We can go fucking nuts if you want! Oh, it may not be easy to wrench out of the rut, the shape might fight us every step of the way, but in the end it will accept new patterns once forced to.”

Harry thought that both options sounded more or less awful. “…I suppose it’s better to stick with what we know,” he said at last.

“As your assigned integrationist, my professional opinion is that we continue working within the UO as it was originally set forth, as we have the most familiarity with it. And because who knows how many people would have to die to change it,” Scott added.

“What would be the easiest way? Just to kill me?”

“No, the shape would go out of its way to try and prevent that, I’d have a hard time killing you. If you just left and never came back, that would be the easiest way. But you wouldn’t do that.”

Harry was struck by a sudden thought. “Is that why it chose me, you think? Because it knows I wouldn’t abandon everyone?”

“Again, you’re anthropomorphising the shape.” Scott paused contemplatively. “…But we can’t say for sure that isn’t a factor.”

Sometimes Harry felt like Scott hid behind the scientific process to avoid ever giving a definitive answer. He’d never voiced that to the older man, mostly because he knew the immediate retort would be an accusation of ignorance. He supposed he’d give Scott the benefit of the doubt, in this case, as it really did seem there was no way to know for sure.

“All right. I’m off,” Harry said, turning to leave.

“Yeah, good talk,” Scott said in a tone that may or may not have been sarcastic.

Harry made his way upstairs, knees wobbling slightly with every upward step. He’d felt worn but more or less all right after his bench session, but with every passing minute it was becoming clear that he’d pushed himself further than he had intended. Scott had warned against being overly impatient when it came to lifting. Harry was beginning to see why. By the time he reached the loo he felt as if some key bones had been pulverized into rubber.

The shower helped some, even if his shoulders ached with the simple act of washing himself. He made a mental note never to hit the weights that hard before he had to actually leave Grimmauld and fight something. He couldn’t close his fingers all the way to make a fist, a motion that sent a strange and painful sensation through his wrists. He seemed to be discovering new muscles, and they didn’t like being found.

He pressed his knuckles against the misted tile; they felt solid, insensitive. Like he could hit someone and it wouldn’t hurt him much. Maybe he was just numb. Still, he felt physically capable in a way that Quidditch had never made him. Not that Quidditch was easy on the body, really, it was just… different. It was holding on, not pushing back. For him, at least. He supposed the other positions weren’t the same.

He shook himself and scoffed slightly, stepping back under the spray of the water. What, did he think a couple months of working out and punching fake throats made him a martial arts master? The best he could hope for was to have an edge over Death Eaters who weren’t used to doing anything more strenuous than lifting a tea cup. As Scott had once said, Harry’s wand would serve him better.

Not that Harry would pass up the chance to punch a Death Eater in the throat. It would be a shame to never put that particular skill to use.

When he was finished, he dried himself with fumbling arms and staggered into his bedroom, ready to lie still for a while even though it was the middle of the afternoon. He knew from previous experience that the longer he ceased to move, the harder it would be to start again, and if he slept until supper he’d feel as if he were made of wood. He didn’t really care, though.

He stared at the ceiling for an indeterminate amount of time. The strength may have been leaking from his limbs, but the sense of fatigue didn’t seem to extend to his mind. And it was dangerous for him to have nothing to do but think, he knew that. Still, his memory drifted back to his early days at Hogwarts, when the wizarding world had seemed so new and vast. Had he been under such a cloud even then? That wasn’t how he remembered it. He remembered laughter and adventure and brief moments of terror, not the darkness that assaulted him in the spaces between the things that kept him occupied. He wondered if that was simply because his situation was so much worse, or if it was also _he_ who had changed. It sounded like the kind of concept which might even be medical; he made a mental note to ask Sophie, sometime.

He musings were stalled when Ginny’s slender form slipped through the light of the partially opened doorway. “Harry? Are you awake?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, not moving.

“I thought you’d passed out,” she said normally, closing the door behind her and plunging the room into darkness. After a moment, the lamp on the dressing table flickered to life, bathing the room in its soft yellow glow.

“I wish.”

She sat next to him, jostling the springs. “Did Scott push you too hard?” she said suspiciously.

“No, it… Sort of, but it was mostly me. I just want to be stronger without it taking so long.”

“Hmmm…” She ran her fingers lightly up his arm, prodding the muscles. “Feels pretty strong to me.”

He flexed slightly for her benefit. “Could be better. Feels good, though.”

“If I press a bit harder?” she asked, kneading the muscle more.

“Yeah. Ah—” he winced and she quickly withdrew.

“Sorry.”

“It didn’t really hurt. Only sort of, but in a good way.”

She twisted around until she was perched on her knees, her hands folded at her thighs in a hesitant fashion. “So… I’ve had a thought…”

“Sounds dangerous,” he said, lips curling upwards.

To his surprise, she didn’t snark back. “It’s… You’re trying to relax, right? You think… I could help?”

“You are helping,” he told her, trying a different approach as she didn’t seem to be in a teasing mood. He reached out and curled his fingers around hers.

She held his hand for a moment, then pulled away. “Just lie back, all right? I want to try something,” she told him.

“You want me to roll over?” he asked, thinking she was going to have a go at his sore muscles (and was totally fine with that).

“No. I need you to be on your back. I think. I don’t know how it would work the other way. I mean, maybe…” she said, pondering that for a moment with an adorable face of concentration. Then she reached for the zipper on his trousers, and he froze in total surprise.

She noticed his tense reaction, and her hands halted in mid-motion. “Is this okay?” she said uncertainly.

“I… Um…” he struggled to articulate. “Yeah, I just didn’t think…”

“You don’t want me to…?” she said, beginning to retreat.

Harry didn’t have a lot of experience with women but he was smart enough to know he needed to say something reassuring, immediately, or he was going to do real damage. “I do!” he said quickly, and then winced at how eager he’d sounded.

Ginny started to smile in amusement, an expression which gave him no small measure of relief. “But?”

“I’ve never done anything like this. Nobody’s…”

“It’s a bit embarrassing, for me, too. But, we’ll just have to get over that,” Ginny said with determination.

Easier said than done, but, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Besides, you don’t need to be embarrassed,” she reassured him. “I’m not— I’ve _felt_ it before, I know it’s not small. I wouldn’t care if it was.”

“Really?” Harry said, surprised. He’d always been under the impression that was really important to girls.

“It’s attached to you, that’s the important part,” she said, leaning over to bring her mouth close to his. “Will you let me?”

Whatever token shreds of modesty had been holding him back disappeared quickly enough whilst her tongue was in his mouth. “…You talked me into it,” he said after they broke the kiss.

She snorted into his neck, placing another kiss on his jaw. Leaning back, she reached for his trousers again. “You need to tell me if I do something wrong. I asked Lila, she said we have to communicate, all right? I don’t… You need to say something.”

“You asked Lila?” Harry said faintly as his trousers came undone, the disconcerting thought still not enough to affect his almost unbearable level of arousal. He’d been straining against his trousers to the point that the release of pressure felt like a noose being removed.

“Just in general!” She paused with one hand hovering over the cloth-covered swell of his erection and he almost groaned in disappointment. “She said we have to talk, it’s really important. Because otherwise we won’t know, not yet. Someday.”

Harry didn’t know how intelligible he was going to be once they got started. “I’ll try,” he said.

At last, she tugged down his boxers, freeing him. She flinched slightly, startled, as his erection flicked upwards. “It jumped at me!” she giggled nervously.

“Sorry. It does that,” Harry managed, feeling his cheeks begin to burn.

He tried to control his breathing as she wrapped one hand around him, her expression curious. He’d been hoping for something more from her than simple curiosity, considering the effect she was having on him. He started to feel like the whole affair might be uncomfortably one-sided until he studied her more closely and noticed how her cheeks were also red with what seemed like more than embarrassment, and how her nipples stood stiff beneath her shirt. That made him feel substantially better. It also made him want to get his mouth around one of those nipples, especially since he reckoned after the step forward they were currently taking, she’d probably let him.

“It’s so smooth,” she marvelled, and Harry wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “But isn’t it… Isn’t it a bit big?”

Harry felt a surge of pride that was almost immediately quashed when he realised that she actually sounded worried. He wasn’t all that big, was he? He didn’t have much in the way of comparison, but he didn’t think he was particularly impressive. It fit him well enough, he supposed, it seemed proportional, but he wasn’t a very big bloke. Harry remembered some of the magazines Dudley kept under his bed that he’d thought nobody knew about; Harry had taken a look at them a time or two, and he wasn’t anything _close_ to the blokes he’d seen on the glossy pages. Though, come to think of it, Ginny was quite a bit smaller than those women had been. Did that matter?

“Um… No?” he hazarded. “I don’t think so…?”

“Really?” She squinted, mulling that over. “Well, I don’t know how well this is going to fit, never mind something bigger,” she said dubiously.

Harry was pleased at how inevitable she made it sound and simultaneously troubled by her doubt. “Um…” He couldn’t think of anything to say about it, though. He was beginning to realise that, despite his familiarity with the general mechanics, he really needed a better grasp of the technicalities.

Ginny blinked, and refocussed on the matter at hand. “Bloody hell, that’s really hard, isn’t it? Does it hurt like this?”

“No. Not… Not like you’re thinking.”

She stroked him then, from top to bottom, and he couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him or the way his hips jolted off the bed. “You liked that! I can tell, you didn’t even have to say anything,” she said delightedly, eyes bright and sparkling.

He didn’t think it was possible to get any more aroused than he already was, but she was proving him wrong. Her open enjoyment was just additional fuel on the fire. “Yeah,” he said, the power of speech beginning to leave him.

“Okay, so I just…” She stroked again, more firmly this time.

Harry made another awkward noise, which he reckoned probably served just fine in lieu of a response.

He did his best to hold off, he really did, primarily out of some vague, internalised notion that he should try to delay his finish because that was more masculine, or something, he couldn’t really think about that or anything else whilst her tight little hand was on him. He wasn’t even doing that bad a job of it, right until she picked up the pace; and somewhere along the way he felt the touch of her tongue, brief and tentative. But that was his Ginny, bravely testing the waters, and he desperately wanted to open his eyes to see her do it but it was far, far too late for that and then he was flying over the edge, arriving at the moment of free fall with an intensity that made him feel like he’d just been wasting his time doing it all by himself.

It took him a bit to regain his senses. He finally slid his eyes open to see Ginny watching him with a very pleased expression, eyes wide and wondering.

“Shit,” he muttered, glancing towards the door. “I wasn’t really loud, was I?”

“You said my name,” she said proudly. She looked down at the mess he’d made.

He felt himself beginning to blush again. “Sorry. I know it’s gross,” he said, reaching blindly for his wand.

“You don’t like it?” she said curiously, lifting her hand from his softening member and turning it over to examine the fluid on her fingers. “…I think I might,” she said. “I like that it’s yours. I like that I made you do it.”

God, he wanted to kiss her. He set about to cleaning up, a task made so much easier by magic. He tugged up his trousers and immediately put his arms around her, ignoring the pain in his shoulders and chest.

A few minutes of languid snogging later, Ginny gently pushed against his chest until he was prone again. “You think you can sleep, now?” she asked.

“What?” Harry said dumbly.

“You’re supposed to be relaxed, remember?” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but, what about you? Don’t you want me to…” Harry trailed off, trying to think of what he could do for her. The goal was obvious enough, it was the exact method that he needed to know.

“If you weren’t falling asleep, maybe,” she said wryly.

He wanted to deny it, but didn’t think he could pull it off. His eyelids were made of stone. Ginny had relaxed him, all right. “But…”

“It’ll be about me next time, it’s okay. I promise, it’s all right,” she assured him.

He wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “You’re sure?”

She stood from the bed. “I’ve got to have a shower, anyway. You really think you’ll be awake by the time I get back?” she said, opening the door.

In his defence, he did try. But the weights had turned his muscles to jelly and then Gin had liquefied everything else, and it wasn’t long after she left that he sank into a blissful slumber.

***---~**~---***

The next morning, Harry returned to the dining hall with the thought that he might damage some other muscle groups, given that his arms and shoulders were still nearly unusable. He was surprised to find Sophie busily assaulting Scott. They were only practising, of course, but violence on display was so different than the things Harry usually associated with the tiny Kharadjai woman. He had done some training of his own with her, simple lessons in close combat primarily intended to be used as a last resort, but her demonstrations had lacked any real threat or impact. She had shown them what to do, not actually done it to them.

Sophie was striking at Scott’s midsection as he blocked her blows, the meaty smack of her hands hitting his echoing in the room. Her hits lacked the effortless power and rapidity of Scott’s, but were precise and considered. It was eye-opening, really. Harry had never really thought of her the way he did Scott and Lila, as someone who could be dangerous. She instantly went from being a tiny bundle of cheerful goodwill that Harry would have felt bad for even frowning at to someone he knew he couldn’t take despite being ten inches taller.

He was struck by their total silence as they practised. He’d never heard any of the Kharadjai shout whilst fighting, never loosing a ‘hi-yah!’ or anything similar. Maybe that was only something people did on the telly.

“Hey, Harry,” Scott said, glancing away from Sophie as he smoothly locked one of her wrists, straightening her arm and torquing it inward.

He paid for his lapse in focus a second later when Sophie, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration, used her free hand to land a solid hit square to his solar plexus, causing his breath to leave him with an audible huff. He released her and took a step back, bending forward slightly.

Sophie looked towards Harry. “Oh, are we stopping?”

“She says, having already taken her cheap shot,” Scott said with a bit of a wheeze.

“You didn’t say to stop!” Sophie defended herself. Her expression turned contrite, though, and she gently pressed two fingers to his torso. “I didn’t really hurt you, did I?”

“Pffft. I’m made of steel, woman. Solid fuckin’ steel,” Scott said, clenching his fists and flexing his arms.

“You’re not so great,” Sophie said with a toss of her curls. Her eyes were bright and she was obviously suppressing a smile.

Scott extended his arm. “No? Check out these guns. Harry knows. Harry, tell her how I blast these guns.”

“Oh, no, I never should have found those weights for you,” Sophie said with exaggerated regret. “Now you’re becoming just another meathead. You’ll probably be illiterate soon.”

“Pretty lady smell good,” Scott grunted, leaning over Sophie’s shiny, loose ringlets.

“Away, brute!” she giggled. She pressed her hands to his chest, ostensibly to push him back, but she wasn’t so much exerting force as she was touching the muscles she’d claimed indifference to.

Harry felt awkward watching them flirt so blatantly, but it also sparked some half-remembered anger towards Scott. If the Kharadjai was so sodding determined to pair everyone up, then why didn’t he just snog Sophie already? He’d given Harry so much shite over Ginny…

So Harry didn’t feel bad about it at all when he said, “So are you going to kiss her, or do I need to leave, first?”

Unfortunately for Harry’s sense of vengeance, Scott wasn’t the fumbling teen that Harry had been. “Good question. What do you say, Sophie — put on a show?” Scott said, raising an eyebrow at her.

Sophie was staring wide-eyed at Harry with her cheeks beginning to tinge red, which immediately made him feel bad. He’d been having a go at Scott, not her, but of course she was the one caught off guard and embarrassed to be called out in such a manner. Harry tried to look apologetic.

Sophie stepped away from Scott and, with great dignity, headed out the door. “We’ll spar again later, Scott, I have some other things I need to do,” she said as she left, rather pointedly ignoring Harry.

“Well. That blew up in your face,” Scott commented after she was gone.

“Piss off,” Harry grumbled. “You’re such a hypocrite.”

Scott didn’t bother asking what Harry was talking about. “We’re not Primes and don’t have the same requirements, but regardless, you don’t know much about us and I’m not getting into it.”

“Of course not. We only pick apart my life, never yours.”

Scott shut his eyes tightly for a moment. “…We’re colleagues, and I’m technically her commanding officer at the moment. We’ve been close friends for a very long time. There’s a lot of attraction there and we both know it, but however I do or don’t feel about her, right now we have a job to do. If we’re moving towards something more, it’ll happen in its own time.”

Harry considered that, even as he was slightly stunned by Scott’s unusual personal honesty. “Do you think you are?” he asked.

“I think neither of us wants to jeopardize what we already have for anything less than something… equally permanent.” Scott’s jaw set. “Good enough? Are we done?”

Harry was really enjoying being on the other side of the conversation. “Um… Yeah. For now.”

“Damn big of you,” Scott retorted, reaching for a nearby free weight.

Watching Scott place the weight where the others were stored, Harry realised he had an opportunity to take advantage of the older man’s life experience in ways beyond combat and physical fitness. Ginny’s parting words to him the night before, about it the two of them focussing on her the next time (and Harry felt a little thrill run through him every single instance he thought about the guarantee of a next time), had left him wondering how he was going to gain the necessary level of information required to avoid embarrassing himself. And, yeah, she’d said they should talk about it and she’d probably be able to tell him what to do, but what about all the things she didn’t know? It wasn’t like they were going to stop with just using their hands, were they?

Scott knew all kinds of rubbish. He’d been with girls before. Probably. Harry didn’t know of any examples, but it seemed like a fairly safe assumption. And it wasn’t as if Harry could go to Ron about any of it. The two of them hadn’t ever talked much about girls, really, it didn’t come up very often. And since it was Ron’s sister in question, he was right out, anyway.

It wasn’t going to be easy to ask about, but Harry wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. He gathered up his courage and walked closer to Scott.

“Hey, um… There was something else I wanted to ask you,” he began a bit unsteadily.

Scott turned away from the weights, his expression mildly curious. “What’s that?”

“It’s about Ginny.”

Scott frowned. “What about her?”

“Well, we… I—” Harry stopped himself. He didn’t want to get specific about the real reason behind his line of questioning. “We’ve been together for a bit now, and I was just wondering… You know…”

Scott’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “About sex?”

“Yeah,” Harry said miserably, already feeling like coming to Scott had been a terrible idea. But he didn’t have a whole lot of options.

“Interesting, interesting…” Scott said with the beginnings of a sly smile.

“And I need you not to be an arsehole about this,” Harry said quickly before Scott could get going. “I mean it. I need someone who knows about this rubbish, but if you start taking the piss—”

“Okay, relax,” Scott soothed. “I’ll be professional.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I can be objective. Probably.”

“Good,” Harry said, not really believing him. “So, um…”

Scott waited patiently.

“…It’s just, I’ve heard talk, you know, in the Tower and after Quidditch. You know how blokes can be.”

“I’ve been in the army for a long time, Harry,” Scott said with a look of remembered disgust. “All they fucking talked about on Carcer patrol was fucking. Never mind when I was walking beat on Hanetse, that was red light district. You ever hear a bunch of prostitutes sitting around talking shop? God. _God.”_

“Yeah, so, I’ve been… worried.” Scared, was more like it. “Because Ginny and I, we don’t have a lot of experience and she said some things… I just, I guess it’s supposed to hurt for a girl, the first time? But I don’t want to hurt her.”

“Good, Harry. Good for you,” Scott said without any detectable sarcasm.

“So, er… She thought I wouldn’t… Um, fit. In her.”

“That’s very unlikely,” Scott said. “The vagina is designed to accommodate the head of an infant, so unless you have some kind of ludicrous freak-chode that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Great, now Harry was worried that he _did_ have whatever Scott just said. “I think I’m average. I think.”

“Ninety-five percent of human males fall within the four and a half- to seven-inch range. Girth is a different issue — did you know that we have the greatest circumference in mammals, both relative to mass and absolutely? We’ve got the thickest dicks around.”

“Weird. Why is that?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, anything big enough to actually get in there is all you need to get the job done.”

“Well, I definitely fall into that range, I’m almost positive. The average range you said, so…”

“So no worries.”

Harry still had worries. “What do I do about this ‘hymen’ thing?” He shifted a bit, deeply uncomfortable with using even the technical terms in front of Scott. He didn’t think he would have been if the conversation hadn’t been about _Ginny’s_ technical terms. “I know I have to break it, but is there anything I can do to make it better?”

Scott rubbed at his forehead. “Okay, first off you’re suffering from misinformation. But you aren’t to blame, because it’s a very pervasive bit of untruth. The hymen doesn’t work that way, it isn’t something you just bust through.”

“Oh.” Harry was more mortified than he could ever remember being, but he was instantly grateful that he had decided to talk to Scott. The embarrassment was worth it if it meant he wouldn’t do the wrong thing with Ginny.

“Hmmm, how to illustrate…” Scott cast a glance around the room. “Well, I’m not seeing anything. So, here.” He put his left fingers in the shape of a circle, and then he put his right hand flat over part of it, creating a half-circle. “My flat hand here is the hymen and the circle is the vagina. The hymen is a membrane, see? It doesn’t cover the whole thing. There’s a lot of variation depending on the woman in question, it could be oriented like this, or like this… But anyway, it’s stretchy. It has elasticity. So when your penis goes in here, it stretches it out and sort of pushes it out of the way, depending on what’s left of it. After adolescence, the hymen usually isn’t much of a presence. It’s mostly all the muscles that you need to stretch out.”

Harry’s face was burning. He dutifully paid attention, however, his embarrassment matched by his curiosity.

Scott continued, “The reason it hurts her the first time is because… Well, it’s really because she expects it to and it may be difficult for her to lubricate right. And your instinct is to just ram on up in there, which can tear the membrane or even abrade the vagina. So don’t go all porn stallion on her and there shouldn’t be any bleeding at all.”

Harry was utterly relieved. He had been deeply opposed to making Ginny bleed in any way, but had thought it was unavoidable. “So what do I do?”

“Stretch her out. The vagina isn’t very deep when at rest, but it elongates under arousal conditions. If you’re having trouble fitting, you need to take your time and get her more worked up. Use your fingers or her fingers, then your dick if you want. If you can’t get in there slowly, then go back to fingers. Take your time. You’ll want her to be as wet as possible anyway, so just go to town on that pussy. Get your mouth on there.”

“All right,” Harry said shakily, delighted and intimidated by the thought.

“Yeah, it’s not a race. If you’re worried about holding back then just take care of yourself first, at the beginning. Have her do it. You’ll be ready to go again by the time she is.”

Harry was more interested in the technical details, the last thing he wanted to do with Scott was talk technique. “Um, so, back to the hymen… If I stretch it first, it won’t hurt her at all?”

“Harry, I don’t know what state Ginny’s hymen is in and if I did, you’d probably _Avada_ me right now. I mean, be sure to check it out, but, it’s probably not going to be your primary concern. It’s not going to be comfortable for her just because she’s not used to accommodating a penis. But if you work on it first there shouldn’t be any serious pain, no. Ginny’s pretty athletic, so that might help. Physical activity can do some stretching on its own.”

Something occurred to Harry then. “Wait, so if the hymen is so elastic, does that mean it can just go back to where it was?”

“It can, given enough time. Same with the vagina in general. The hymen has a tendency to lose its shape a bit and stay out of the way once its seen some use, but not always.”

“But, then how is that a way to tell if someone’s a virgin?”

Scott shrugged again. “It isn’t. Hell, some women are born without a hymen. The whole ‘pop a cherry’, blood on the bedsheets noise is all cultural. Back when they used to check that kind of thing, a lot of brides would just cut a finger or something.”

“Do you think Ginny has one?” Harry asked, still a bit concerned despite the new information.

“I doubt there’s much left of it. But unless you want to get me a flashlight and some stirrups, I can’t give you a full gynaecological overview.”

Harry didn’t know what Scott was talking about, exactly, but he reckoned he probably didn’t want to. “Okay. Thanks, that’s… Just, thanks for talking.”

Scott’s gaze had turned calculating. “I take it this has suddenly become a pressing concern?”

Harry wasn’t going to detail the previous night, no matter how pointed Scott’s questions became. “No. I just wanted to know more.”

“That’s admirable,” Scott allowed.

Harry crossed his arms, not appreciating the sudden scrutiny. Was Scott getting all protective about Ginny? That didn’t seem very characteristic of the Kharadjai. “I don’t want to do the wrong thing. I’ve never had a girlfriend before. Not for real, I mean. Like, long-term.”

“You’ll make mistakes,” Scott predicated. “It’s okay. As long as you try to do better.”

“Girls are just… Really confusing sometimes,” Harry admitted, hoping he didn’t sound too stupid.

“Oh, man. Are we moving into clumsy gender politics, now?” Scott said reluctantly.

“…Yes?” Harry ventured.

“Great.”

“I know they don’t want me to be…” Harry searched for the right word. “…Overbearing? Gin had a point, you know, about me trying to chuck her because I get all protective or whatever, I know that. But, it’s like, am I going to get shouted at for holding a door open? What should I act like?”

Scott sighed. “I don’t know, that’s very situational. But I can tell you what you’re doing wrong right now.”

“What?”

“Women are not a monolithic entity. Asking ‘what do women want’ is a meaningless question. What do men want? Are me, you and Ron all on the same page about our place in society and how we should be treated and treat others?”

“Well… I mean, we haven’t talked about it, but…”

“Probably not. Look, let me put it this way: if you said, ‘Milady’, and kissed Hermione’s hand, she’d pull her hand back and immediately try to categorise your strange dementia. If you said, ‘Milady’, and kissed Ginny’s hand, she’d be confused, but probably game to play along once she understood what you were going for. And if you said, ‘Milady’, and kissed Sophie’s hand, she’d giggle like a loon and curtsey with a, ‘Milord!’.”

“What if I kissed Lila’s hand?” Harry asked, amused.

“You’d have to actually grab her hand first, and I doubt you’d get that far. Or maybe she’d turn your wrist bones into gravel; the point is there’s no overarching consensus because women are people and people are individuals. I’m not saying there’s a total lack of overlap. You can get some common sense, majority beliefs like, ‘Stop paying us less for doing the same job’ and ‘cut it out with the sexual assault’.” Scott paused. “I overstated that thing with Lil for comedic purposes, just FYI. I don’t want you to think she’d actually fuck you up for trying to kiss the back of her hand.”

“I still don’t think I’d care to try,” Harry admitted.

Scott smiled fondly. “People don’t always know what to make of her. I know she’s stoic and blunt and kind of intimidating, depending, but she wouldn’t hurt any of you unless you forced her to. But that’s exactly what we’re talking about, isn’t it? She’s complicated. We’re all complicated. And that’s makes the way we relate with each other…”

“Complicated.”

“So think about that. And think about what _Ginny_ wants, not some imaginary female hive-mind. Oh, and hold the door open for everyone, men and women. Don’t be a dick.”

Harry reckoned he’d probably have more questions, in time. No doubt progressing his relationship with Ginny would reveal even more gaps in his knowledge. Deciding he’d had enough for the present, he gestured towards the weights. “You got anything I can work on without using my arms?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s work on your abs: individual though she is, I find it highly probable that Ginny will appreciate it.”

***---~**~---***

Diagon Alley was heavy, and not just with the promise of snow. A great weight had settled over the streets and shops, one which bent people’s heads at the neck and hurried them on their way, making no eye contact or unnecessary stops. The air was thick with the prospect of sudden pressure. Above the stalls and alleys hovered the anticipation that came just before the supports bowed and broke. It was disconcerting, probably unhealthy and definitely uncomfortable.

Luna held Neville’s hand a bit more tightly, to compensate.

Sophie, for her part, had a look of vague disappointment. Having never visited the Alley before, she had no doubt built an image of it in her head based on second-hand tales that were only barely applicable in the present. The streets that had once been bustling with life and colour had gone grey and empty. Boarded doorways and shuttered windows looked out over walkways dotted sparsely by people. It wasn’t a place to walkabout, not anymore. The joy had left, along with the ice cream.

“Are you sure you don’t want to say you’re my aunt?” Neville said nervously as they made their way towards the white marble bastion of Gringotts.

“No, we shouldn’t lie about who we are.” Sophie tucked some of her curls behind one ear with a slight frown creasing her smooth brow. “…Do I look old enough to be your aunt?”

Neville glanced over at her, and then sighed. “Not really.”

Sophie smiled. “That’s okay.”

Luna thought Sophie didn’t look much older than either of them, but she carried herself with the adult confidence that people seemed to grow into. Luna also wasn’t sure why the woman was accompanying Neville to Gringotts, though that was none of Luna’s concern. It was something Harry had asked for, and she trusted him.

“I’ve never gone by myself before,” Neville said yet again. He had repeated the fact several times already, perhaps to ensure that everyone’s expectations were properly lowered. Luna wasn’t sure why he felt he needed to do that. She had full confidence in him.

“You’re of age now, Neville,” Luna told him. “It will be all right.”

His hand flexed anxiously in hers. “Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath.

The steps of Gringotts were wide and still dusted with stars of frost from the night before. Luna hadn’t often been to the bank, but she remembered it rather differently. It had been bustling and mighty, a strong and ancient bastion of wealth and goblin culture. Dangerous, yes, but also reliable. Now Gringotts felt distant and cold. Even though the structure remained the same, it lacked the same aura of refinement and power. Its new masters did not understand it.

At the top of the steps were two wizards with security probes. Ostensibly a security measure during the social turbulence, Luna had no doubt they were Death Eaters posted to root out those the Ministry was hunting. Her own blood status protected her, though she wasn’t sure for how much longer. Neville had invited her to stay at his house over the holiday, and she knew he worried for her safety. From the way he’d been acting, she didn’t think he’d let her leave when the time came, not without a fight.

Lacking any concealed items, the three of them were allowed to pass. It had been a condition of their foray that they not carry anything that would trigger Gringotts security. They had openly approached the bank and were all using their real names. Neville and Luna had been told they were visiting Neville’s vault, and little else.

The main hall was a bit subdued, likely from a combination of the war and the weather. Only a portion of the usual customer numbers roamed the tiled floors, and there were far fewer goblins behind the counters than standard. Many stations sat empty. Luna knew the goblins were already clashing with the edicts of Voldemort’s puppet Ministry; _The Quibbler_ had published an article regarding the likelihood of another goblin rebellion. There were many rumours of goblins who had left the service of Gringotts — either forcibly or in protest — and were spreading dissent or even violence.

The Ministry denied all of it, of course, but the number of humans visible behind the staff cordons of the hall spoke for itself.

Neville had approached one of the goblins in charge of accounts. “Er— I’d like to access my vault…?”

The goblin was unamused. “You would or you would not?”

Neville shook himself slightly and stood more upright. “I would, yes. I’m Neville Longbottom, I’d like to visit my family vault.”

The goblins required a few minutes to confirm Neville’s identity. Whilst they were doing so, Luna watched as Sophie studied the lobby with great care. Her green eyes darted over every corner, doorway and window. Luna also enjoyed observation, though she felt that Sophie probably had reasons more specific.

“Two guests?” the goblin said, looking around Neville.

Having already had it impressed upon him to reveal as little as possible, Neville only nodded.

“Very well. Your guide will be Yagrat.” The goblin paused. “Have a pleasant day,” he added in a somewhat grudging tone.

“Am I allowed to take pictures?” Sophie asked, brandishing a camera. “I’m so excited to see Gringotts and a real vault!” she effused, her eyes wide and guileless.

The goblin seemed to interpret her accent the way he was intended to, and her tourism didn’t garner any suspicion. “Pictures are allowed in the main hall, but you must leave it here before you descend to the vaults. It will be kept safe for you.”

“Okay, thank you!” Sophie said brightly. She turned away and immediately began snapping pictures of the room. She was a bit more thorough about it than the average tourist.

They loitered long enough to allow Sophie her photography, then made their way to the door indicated by the goblin at the counter. There were multiple entrances to the underneath, it seemed.

A goblin waiting nearby approached them. “Longbottom vault,” he said, though it wasn’t a question. “I am Yagrat, your guide today. Hold here for a moment, Mr Longbottom, I’ll need the clankers.”

Yagrat went behind one of the nearby counters and ducked into a small adjoining office. He emerged a moment later with a jingling leather sack. It sounded as if it were full of nails, or Snorkack horns (which would be barbaric, and Luna hoped that was not the case).

Their guide turned out to be a goblin with little to say (at least to humans), and they boarded a cart after they’d listened to a few curt warnings. Luna was disappointed to hear she should keep her arms and legs inside the cart at all times. She’d wanted to make her hand swim through the air.

“Is your vault very deep?” Luna shouted to Neville over the noise of the cart.

“I think so,” Neville loudly replied. “I haven’t been in years, but it’s one of the older ones.”

Sophie said nothing at all during the trip, her eyes distant. What the woman saw, Luna couldn’t say, though she had a thought or two about it. Scott had the same sort of look in his eye at times. It was when he touched the world with instruments beyond his skin. Luna wished she could do the same, but only ever caught the ripples at the most distant edge.

The cart went down, spiralling into the depths of the earth. Sights flashed by too quickly to catalogue. After a time, Luna closed her eyes and imagined she was flying on the back of the fastest Thestral. It was a journey better felt than seen.

Gradually, the cart began to slow. They were deep in the bedrock, with no sign of the shoring used in the tunnels above. Each passage was bored through the stone with exacting precision. Neville’s vault was a heavy metal door set deep in the wall. Much more interesting than the door was the dragon in front of it. Luna thought dragons were a bit common as far as creatures went, so she’d never been especially keen on them, but it was still quite an experience to be so close to one.

“I remember him,” Neville said, a bit pale.

Sophie wrinkled her nose. “This is too much.”

“It’s a status thing, mostly. All the old families want dragons at their vaults,” Neville explained.

“I hope they let it out sometimes,” Sophie said, eyeing the beast sympathetically. “What’s a dragon supposed to do down here?”

“Wait here,” Yagrat told them.

When shaken in Yagrat’s hand, the clankers lived up to their name. The sound echoed around the cavern, an eerie repeating clamour. The dragon slowly reacted to the sound, shuffling backwards with it body hunched defensively. It was afraid, Luna realised. The poor thing. What had the goblins done to it to make it fear such a simple noise? Nothing pleasant, to be sure. Luna didn’t much care for that thought. Creatures were to be studied, not tortured.

“Conditioning,” Sophie muttered, and from the look in her eyes she probably agreed with Luna’s thoughts on the matter.

The dragon retreated a safe distance away, the maximum amount allowed by its shackles. They followed the goblin forward, stepping around the remains of something large and partially eaten. Luna wondered where the dragon went to the loo.

“Where does the key go?” Sophie asked as they approached the vault.

“There is no key. Only the touch of a Gringotts’ goblin can open the vault,” Yagrat said self-importantly. He pressed his palm against the door. After a moment there came a dull rumbling, and then the vault door split from its housing and began to swing open.

For a moment, absolute triumph crossed Sophie’s face, lighting her eyes. Then she seemed to remember her audience, and carefully schooled her features. She wasn’t fully successful, her body still retaining the posture of excitement. Scott and Lila were much better at that sort of thing, Luna realised. Sophie was a different sort.

“Speak to me when you’ve finished,” Yagrat told Neville. The goblin went back and stood sentry near the cart.

The Longbottom vault was full of well-organised riches. There were many chests of Galleons and Sickles, along with cabinets of fine jewellery and china. Everything was arranged for easy, intuitive access. Luna didn’t have another old vault to compare it to, but she imagined that it was grand by most standards. There was a great deal of heirlooms, too. There were stacks of furniture and boxes of trinkets. She rather liked the look of a lacquered globe of the earth mounted on a handsome dark wood frame.

She supposed she ought to not touch anything, though. It wasn’t hers, after all, and Gringotts was supposed to be quite tricky about ownership. She wouldn’t want to lose a finger. It’d be ever so much harder to count, and Neville might be less enthusiastic about holding a four-fingered hand.

“It’s a fine vault, Neville,” she said.

“I remember it being bigger,” he replied, scratching his head. “I guess I was smaller.”

“I think it’s quite large,” she assessed, walking forward to stand next to him. “Do you think it’s because I’m smaller than you?”

He grinned. “No, it’s pretty big. I just exaggerated it, when I remembered.”

Sophie hadn’t moved much past the door. She appeared idle, and her eyes never focussed.

“You sure you don’t want any money?” Neville called to her.

Sophie twitched slightly, as if startled. “Hmm? Oh… I don’t want to take your money, Neville.”

“I’m not going to miss it,” he said, gesturing to the many chests of Galleons. “What if you need it later?”

Sophie’s mouth firmed, and she nodded. “You’re right. It would be dumb not to, since we’re here. I’ll take whatever you can offer.”

Neville pulled out his wand and levitated an entire chest of the coins, floating it Sophie’s way.

“Neville, that’s too much!” she protested.

“Then you can give what’s left back, after,” he persisted.

“…Okay,” she relented after a moment of pained indecision. “I wish I could pay you back! My money isn’t any good here…”

“They take Muggle money,” Luna noted.

“Yes… But not _my_ money,” Sophie said with a carefully stressed implication.

“My money is on my dressing table in a butterfly jar,” Luna said serenely.

“That’s all right. You lot know I want to help,” Neville said to Sophie.

“And your help is really appreciated. From both of you!” Sophie added.

Neville looked around the vault. “Um… Did you get everything else you needed?” he said curiously.

“No, I still need to… look at things! Because I’m so interested,” Sophie said awkwardly.

Luna took Neville by the elbow and led him farther into the vault. “Shall we look for treasure?” she suggested.

He glanced down at a chest of coins. “Do we have to look?”

“No, I meant something valuable, like a diary, or a very comfortable chair.” She bent down and picked up an old leather-bound book. “Like this.”

“What is it?” Neville wondered, taking it from her.

“It’s yours,” she said.

Neville opened it and turned a few pages, brow creasing. “…It’s a lot of class notes for revision. I think… I think this was my dad’s.”

“Treasure,” Luna said simply, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

Sophie loitered inside the vault for about twenty minutes. Eventually, she made her way over to where Luna and Neville were sorting through a box of correspondence that he had never seen before. “Are you ready?” Sophie asked.

Neville placed a few of the letters back inside the box with an air of regret. “Yeah… We should go. I can come back.”

They returned to the main hall without incident, but on the way back to the door, Sophie stood on her toes to speak in Neville’s ear. “Tell them you forgot something,” she whispered.

“Back in the vault?” Neville said, confused.

Sophie nodded firmly. “Have them take us back.”

The goblins didn’t appear pleased to be making a return trip, but were professional enough not to protest. Sophie never said what she hoped to gain by going to the vault again. Neville didn’t ask, and Luna was more than happy to have a second cart ride.

The sun was setting over Diagon Alley once they emerged from Gringotts and walked down the white marble steps. The angle of the light illuminated the fading bruises around Neville’s jaw, which had been almost invisible in the lamp glow of the bank interior. It hurt Luna to see them, again, almost as much as when they had been fresh. She felt their days at Hogwarts were running out.

Sophie also saw the marks. “Neville, are you _sure_ you don’t want us to get you away from your school?”

Neville hesitated, his eyes darting towards Luna. “I… I would, but we former DA are taking all the attention and I feel like… Like if I left, some of the younger students might…”

Luna took his hand. “We’re all that’s left of Harry,” she told Sophie.

Neville nodded. “She says it better,” he said with a crooked smile.

Sophie gave them a doubtful look. “Well… Okay. But keep using your mirrors.”

“We will,” Neville assured her.

As they approached the back of the Leaky Cauldron, Luna glanced over her shoulder. A light snow had begun to fall over the Alley. In the fading light, it looked grey, like ash. She felt saddened by the sight. She missed the days when the Alley had been bright and beautiful. She missed the way her thoughts had once been less chained.

She tightened her grip on Neville’s coat. Whatever should come, she refused to imagine that she might be missing him.


	36. Wealth of Nations Part I

**36**

**Wealth of Nations**

**Part I**

\---

_“Great care should be taken before acting_   
_against the finances of a sovereign nation._   
_Unlike lesser acts of sabotage or espionage,_   
_the effects of such a strike cannot be ignored_   
_nor undone, and the aggressor may find_   
_themselves at the brunt of the results as_   
_easily as the victim. Money fuels the engines_   
_of war, but is just as often the spark which_   
_ignites them.”_

_—_ Caroline Pfaster Ward, _On The Prosecution of Modern War: A Treatise_  

\--- 

Hermione shivered beneath her heavy coat. She reached up to rearrange her hair, caught as it was in the winter gusts, only to stop when her hand encountered lank, unfamiliar locks of light brown. It was easy to forget sometimes that her appearance was not her own, given that her height was still approximately the same.

Hugging the coat more closely to herself, she hurried up the frozen street. There were few other shoppers braving the weather, though enough business was still occurring in the Alley that she didn’t look out of place. It was still discomfiting, being alone. She wished she could have been partnered with someone, but it would have defeated the purpose. The point was to not appear part of any group, which made for a fraught passage. Not that it wouldn’t have been, regardless, but she was not accustomed to going into danger alone. She had been part of a three-person team long before Scott had stressed the importance of operating in pairs.

The stalwart steps and columns of Gringotts loomed at the end of the street. With a couple inches’ worth of snow on the marble, the bank looked like an icy cave, doors closed over a cavernous interior. It wasn’t snowing currently, but the forecast certainly called for it. The sky was slate grey with clouds that promised even deeper drifts to come.

Hermione carefully avoided looking at the rooftops to her left. Somewhere up there, she knew, was a Disillusioned Ron, blending well into his near-monochrome surrounds. Across the street and closer to the bank, Ginny kept watch from the corner windows of a hotel room. And Harry lurked nearby, beneath his Cloak, waiting for his moment to assist Hermione’s entry. All of them had strenuously protested their lack of inclusion on the team going to the vault, but logic had prevailed. Only Hermione and Sophie would descend into the tunnels. They would move quickly and be less noticeable, especially if there were fewer customers in the bank than usual (the weather indicated that was almost certainly the case).

Not much farther. She took a deep breath as the stairs loomed before her, the air biting the back of her throat, making it feel strange and stiff as it froze the first layer of moisture. At least her Polyjuiced appearance would help disguise how nervous she was.

She had good reason to be. A million things could go wrong at any moment. They had planned to the utmost of their ability, but there were too many variables that could not be known. There was only so much that could be accounted for.

The two guards stationed at the top of the stairs were one facet that had been anticipated. Harry was the gatekeeper, prepared to hit either man with a Confundus Charm when required. Sophie was supposed to have gone in ahead of Hermione, so the plan should have worked once already. It seemed a safe assumption, as there was no sign Sophie had been accosted.

Each cold marble stair felt like a step into the abyss. Taking one last deep, aching breath, Hermione squared her shoulders. It was time to put all that preparation to the test.

“Hang on,” the ‘security wizard’ closest to her said (she was almost certain they were Death Eaters). His voice was stuffy and miserable, and she wondered how long he had been standing outside. He began to extend his Probe and she stiffened in alarm. She needn’t have worried; she never heard Harry’s voice, but the guard’s eyes suddenly went glassy and his arm dropped.

“Thank you,” she said as if he’d cleared her, and hurried past.

Both sets of doors were shut against the chill, she noted, a circumstance that would work in Scott and Lila’s favour. A goblin covered up to his pointed nose in heavy wool opened the door for her less than graciously. Like the men outside, he seemed to resent customers for existing in such weather.

The lobby interior was not vacant, but Hermione estimated there to be no more than twenty clients, including herself and Sophie. There were probably half that number of employees; most of the counters stood empty. Hermione doubted all the absences were due to the snow. Voldemort’s new regime had about as much use for goblins as they did for it. How many people remained in offices and back rooms remained a concern. Having followed Hermione in, Harry was likely already back there, doing his best to account for anyone not in the lobby whilst navigating with a map drawn from the recollections of Trevor’s mother.

Hermione made her way towards the back, where she could see Sophie already waiting. She approached the other woman obliquely, drifting into the same area of the room. Other than moving indirectly, she made little attempt to be unnoticeable: according to Scott, her attempts to be inconspicuous were extremely conspicuous. The Polyjuice would help, as would the time frame. She and Sophie were not intended to loiter long.

She looked up at the large, ornate clock set above the end point of the hall. Two minutes. Her heart began to thud. She ensured her earmuffs were firmly in place and manoeuvred her wand beneath her sleeve. Quietly, she cast a modified Bubble-Head Charm upon herself.

About a minute and a half. Scott and Lila would already be moving. The men on the stair were probably taken care of. Hermione hadn’t heard any commotion, which was good. Things were proceeding well, then.

One minute. A goblin behind a nearby counter grumbled something beneath his breath, impatient. A woman coughed. There was a soft clink as coins changed hands. Someone muffled a sneeze with their scarf.

Thirty seconds. Hermione walked over to just beneath the clock. There was a mural on the wall, though she looked at it without seeing it. All of her focus was bent on the sounds that must soon emanate from the entryway, and be her signal.

***---~**~---***

“Hermione’s inside,” Lila reported from her position near the boarded window. The planks of wood had been nailed in place rather haphazardly, allowing the street to be seen through the gaps.

Scott thought the place had been either a tailor’s or a shop for sewing supplies; there was thread everywhere, scattered across the floorboards and jammed in the cracks like multi-coloured grass. Whatever the case, the abandoned premises provided them a staging ground. The darkened building was across the street to the side of Gringotts. From the second floor, they had a decent view of the wide marble staircase.

Lila was crouched below the window sill, mouth and nose lowered so she wouldn’t inadvertently fog what little of the glass she had access to. Oddly enough, the windows had been boarded from the inside. Apparently, whomever had once owned the place didn’t entirely understand what the practice of boarding windows was meant to accomplish. “Street is clear down to the next opened shop,” she said.

“About five minutes,” Scott told her. “Tac check, then mask up.”

Lil stood and approached him, turning her back. He tugged hard on the catches for her vest, examined everything clipped to her belt and ensured her straps weren’t too tight for movement. Then he turned around so she could do the same for him. Their gear wasn’t designed in such a way that it couldn’t be put on without assistance, but it was better to double check with a different pair of eyes. Scott found himself missing KRAF-issue gear, which would have simplified things both with its design and their familiarity with it. Instead they were stuck with an inconvenient combination of mid-nineties Muggle police and military equipment, a hodgepodge from differing national and corporate origins.

Scott checked his magazine: forty rounds heavy, 5.56x45mm. It had far more wounding capability than such a tiny bullet would suggest. At the ranges in which he would soon be engaged, the 5.56 NATO would possess a speed which greatly increased its chances of yaw, fragmentation or deformation within a struck target. The lightweight bullet could tumble, gouging a new path out of the body, or even skid along bone. He pulled out the magazine and looked at the shiny brass within, remembering a man he had once shot in the arm. He’d only realised his shot placement had been on a limb after the fact, as from a distance he had seen the man’s ear pop off. The round had cartwheeled up the humerus, skipped off the clavicle and exited out the right side of the skull.

Scott had already resolved not to fire his M4 directly at anyone if he could help it, but the memory was a little extra motivation. He never took hostages if he had an alternative. It made things so much more difficult. Hostages were almost inevitably in as much danger from their would-be rescuers as they were their captors. He hoped that the puppet Ministry would be at least willing to pretend to negotiate. He was trying to buy time, after all, not concessions.

Lila had opted to bring her SAW along, downsizing to an M249 from her M240B. A wise choice for the job, but it was still comparatively cumbersome despite the smaller round. She supplemented it with her Spectre M4 SMG, a more compact option.

Scott’s original conception of their disguises had been along the lines of hockey masks or movie monsters, but that had only appealed to his sense of the dramatic. Much more practical were their balaclavas with a single wide opening for the eyes, preventing any loss of peripheral vision. The build-up of moisture in the cloth around the mouth and nose was always unpleasant, though. Such was the price of fashion.

His internal clock regained his attention. “Four minutes. Let’s go.”

Lila hefted her large duffel bag up and slung it over it her shoulder. Between that and the LMG resting against her torso, she looked like a pack mule. It was still strange to see dark green eyes looking out from her masked visage. Combined with her shorter stature and pronounced Belfast accent, he had only the shape to remind him that she was his sister.

Well, that and all the guns.

“No fuck ups,” she said.

For once, Scott did not retort, deciding he could just be proud of her without having to cover with a glib reply.

They hurried down to street level, rattling the old wooden stairs with their heavy tread. They stacked up at the door, ready to run. The first few seconds would be crucial. If the doors were to be locked, it might delay them more than they could afford. If they had to scrub the mission, there was no telling how long it would be before they had another shot at Gringotts.

Lila unhooked her SMG and handed it to Scott, temporarily trading him for his M4A1 Carbine. She set her shoulder against the doorway, ready to aim. Scott pulled his long coat shut and swung his duffel bag around so that it rested on his stomach, tucking the Spectre behind it. He pulled up his hood and lowered his head. He didn’t bother reminding Lila of when she should shoot, if needed. There was no point in insulting her.

“Set one,” Lila said.

The cold outside hit him like a slap in the face, snow immediately clinging to his shoulders and boots. He wrapped his arms around his burden and ducked against the wind. Windowpanes rattled and snow hissed across the steps as he ascended them.

He looked up as he neared the doors. The guard closest to him eyed his balaclava not with suspicion, but with envy. “Hey, mate. Rotten fucking weather, eh?” Scott said, walking close to the man.

“You haven’t the slightest,” the man said miserably, his nose red as a cherry. “Just raise your arms, I’ve got to check you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Scott said agreeably. He pulled his hands out from under the duffel bag, bringing the Spectre with them, and slammed the barrel of the gun right between the guard’s eyes.

Scott stepped past the collapsing man and took care of the other; he dispensed with finesse in favour of speed, kicking out the man’s knee before throwing him head first into the ground. Their heads impacted on the marble steps almost simultaneously, creating an odd, icy smack in stereo.

Lila had charged out of the doorway the second he had engaged. She reached the top of the stairs just as Scott finished disabling the sentries. She tossed him the M4 as he did the same with her Spectre, both reattaching their weapons to the appropriate strap.

Scott glanced back down the street. The worsening weather was limiting visibility, but it seemed as if there were one or two people who had seen what had happened. One person was hurrying away, most likely desperate not to become involved, but another was standing outside a nearby shop and gaping at the two of them.

“Set two,” Lila said. Scott turned his back on the street.

They both pressed their shoulders against one side of the double doors. Scott nodded sharply, and they pushed inward at the same time.

Scott encountered unexpected resistance. There was a sharp gasp of alarm and then he was stumbling forward, trying not to fall over the woman who had been about to exit. Fearing a counter-attack from the two goblins in the small antechamber, Scott slammed his palm against the woman’s chest, driving the air from her lungs and knocking her to the ground. He surged past her struggling form and grabbed the rightmost goblin just as he was raising his hand. Lil already had her goblin laid out on the floor and was busying herself by holding the interior doors shut, so Scott slammed the goblin’s head into the floor twice and then held the woman by the neck, carefully cutting off her blood flow. He hoped he hadn’t done any permanent damage to either her or the goblin, though it was a possibility. There were no methods to physically disable someone that were safe. Hopefully, the Draught would fill that gap.

Scott left the room and ducked back outside to grab the two men at the top of the stairs. The street still looked clear enough, but he knew better than to count on there not being any further witnesses. He pulled the battered guards inside the antechamber. One of them was beginning to stir, so he paused to zip-tie their hands. Dropping both of them, he spun around and ripped a length of chain and a padlock out of a side pocket of his duffel bag. He used them to secure the anterior doors, ensuring no one would immediately follow.

“Close,” he said. The woman had been an unlucky complication.

Lila was placing a couple thick zip-ties around the handles of the inner doors. Scott dug into his bag and tossed her a gas mask, quickly donning his own. Beneath the masks were the Milkor MGLs. The 40mm launchers looked like nothing so much as a huge revolver. One had red tape on its handle, the other green. Two others were both adorned with blue tape. He handed the green one to Lila.

Reaching into a side pocket, he withdrew a manual Draught grenade and primed it. He dropped it at his feet with a metallic rattle. It hissed, and the small room began to fill with the misted potion.

“What are you…” one of the goblins began to slur, his eye already swelling shut from what looked like a nasty orbital rim fracture. The mist rolled over him and he sank back to the floor.

The Draught was remarkably effective in a very short frame of exposure, Scott noted as he watched the goblin go under. The source of its potency was magical, and therefore safe in saturation (though Hermione had said it was possible to become addicted over time). Any chemical soporific would have almost certainly killed a percentage of the people inside the bank through overdose or suffocation.

Scott and Lila already knew their patterns. The MGL was a six shot launcher. The first two on both green and red were flashbangs, then the green one was Sleeping Potion and the red one was CS. The blue launchers were alternating CS and flash. If everything worked the way it was supposed to, Scott wouldn’t have to fire anything more than his first two rounds. He didn’t want to use the CS in a closed environment; anyone with asthma could suffocate, and if there were any pregnant women the toxin could have an adverse effect. Better to let the Draught do its work.

“Set three,” Lila said.

Scott hefted his launcher and put himself at the correct angle to the door. Lila pulled out her blade and hacked through the tie on the door handles. They leaned into the door, opening it just enough to reach through. They both pulled a flashbang from their belts, armed it, and tossed it through the opening, shutting the door behind the thrown devices.

The twin explosions on the other side were still loud enough through the silver doors to rattle the light fixtures in the antechamber. Scott peeked through the door again. His view was limited, but it looked as if the flashes had disabled everyone within range. Most of the clientèle near the doors were on the floor: releasing a sound in excess of one hundred and seventy decibels, a flashbang grenade disrupted the inner ear, causing loss of balance and extreme disorientation. None of the goblins behind the nearby counters could be seen, and Scott hoped they were down and not taking cover.

Scott leaned out for a better view and fired twice, lobbing his two 40mm stun grenades towards the middle and end of the lobby. The flashbang had a fully effective range of about five feet, but it would still blind and disorient people outside of that range. At the very least, it could be counted on to scare the hell out of goblins and wizarding folk who had never even heard of such a thing. Scott wanted everyone too confused to understand what came next. Four more bright, smoky flashes lit the lobby. There were scattered screams and shouts of alarm, though not too many. Most of the customers and employees close to the detonations stumbled away and collapsed.

Scott pulled two more flashes from his belt and hurled them towards areas which still had the most movement. Better safe than sorry.

Lila aimed upwards and unleashed her specialised ammunition, squeezing the trigger slowly and deliberately, carefully spacing her shots. The MGL made neither the shattering crack of a rifle nor the hollow thump of a mortar. Instead, each pull of the trigger produced a loud, sharp click. It sounded like the world’s biggest cap gun. As the smoke from the stun grenades rippled through the light, the canisters of Sleeping Draught shot overhead like streamers. They hissed out their trails of somniferous mist, flying along the ceiling and clanging into walls and the floor. The air began to turn a faint purple.

Scott and Lila pulled their doors shut again, and held them closed. There wasn’t much to look at while they waited, save for each other. It still weirded Scott out to see those unfamiliar green eyes behind the gas mask.

“Poppies will make them sleep,” Lila crowed softly through the filter.

Scott grinned widely, though she couldn’t see it. “You’re gonna be sorry you said that if this shit kills somebody.”

Time enough, Scott judged. He cracked the door open, M4 raised to scare someone, if needed.

The lobby was silent. The air was still blurry with mist, the floor dotted and slick where it had settled. All of the customers were prone on the floor. Some of them were crumpled in various awkward positions, but many had their heads pillowed on arms or, in at least one case, a purse. The Sleeping Draught must have robbed them of any desire other than to sleep, and they’d acted accordingly. Those who had fought the sensation were the ones in far less comfortable arrangements.

Scott signalled for Lila to move left. They exited the antechamber with weapons raised, moving rapidly in a combat stance. If the goblins weren’t unconscious, then it could easily come down to a fight. Fortunately, the Draught had done its job well. As Scott raised up and poked the barrel of his weapon over the counter, he saw the staff slumped onto the floor, without exception. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Lila give the signal for ‘all clear’.

What came next was tightly time-constrained. Based on the testing Scott had done, they had somewhere between ten and twenty minutes before the Draught — in its less concentrated, vaporous form — began to wear off. Given the size of the room, Scott was counting on it being closer to ten.

He sprinted to Hermione’s prone form and tapped her twice on the shoulder, then spun around to do the same for Sophie. He didn’t stop to watch the two of them hurry towards the entrance to the vaults. He retrieved a handful of zip-tie handcuffs from his bag and set to work on the right side of the room, securing the hands of the unconscious hostages and moving them behind the counters, two at a time. He arranged them in a pair of side-by-side rows, alternating customers and staff so that the goblins wouldn’t be next to another goblin. On the other side of the room, Lila was dragging the five people from the antechamber into her side of the lobby.

It was difficult to do the job quickly whilst still ensuring that the ties didn’t cut off anyone’s circulation. The goal was restraint, not torture. He was just finishing on the last goblin in the line when a man in a large brown coat began to stir, head rising feebly from the cold floor.

Scott stepped swiftly over the prone bodies between himself and the man and reached down to press a hand against the man’s head, pushing his cheek back to the floor. The man immediately went limp, returning to slumber as Scott had intended. Similar to working with anaesthetic, early risers could be encouraged to go back to sleep. Still, it was a warning that time was running out.

Fortunately, wizarding folk were largely predictable in where they kept their wands on their person, and the goblins didn’t have any. Scott searched through coats, pants and pockets, rifling intently and adding to his growing fistful of wands. He reached the end of his rows with the proper number. He raised the wands up, gaining Lila’s attention. She returned the gesture with a nod — all wands were accounted for.

The Draught mist was even lower, now; the air near the top of the vaulted room was clear. What remained would likely keep the hostages dizzy and docile even after they regained consciousness, especially as they were lying down in the stuff. But Scott didn’t think he could count on the potion to retain its potency indefinitely. There was a reason it was kept in glass, after all. He wished he had a clear timetable, but the Draught was nothing if not an experiment.

Surveying the recumbent hostages, he felt the air shift at his back. A second later, Harry whispered, “I’ve used up all the bombs.”

“How many?” Scott quietly asked.

“Only a few, I think. A lot of the doors are locked.”

And not susceptible to easy unlocking, Scott assumed, given Gringotts’ security. “Stay here. Stun anyone who starts moving. If a lot of them start moving or you think they’re going to realise you’re here, get Lil.”

“Got it,” Harry said.

The back offices were fortunately limited: most of the day-to-day clerical work was performed behind the counters of the main lobby. Scott moved through the narrow halls as quickly as he was able, searching for signs of life. Harry had inundated the area with Sleeping Draught. More tightly contained than it had been in the lobby, the mist was thick enough to impair vision. In the end, Scott collected six goblins and three humans. It took him several minutes to carry them out to join the rest of the hostages. When he was nearer the door, he could hear Lila talking loudly, a sure sign that the Draught was starting to wear off.

When he finally emerged with the last of the office staff, he could see Lila gesturing threateningly with her SMG. His own side of the room was quieter, no doubt due to Harry’s judicious usage of Stunners. Still, the sooner he made his hostages aware of the situation, the better. He didn’t need anyone trying to be a hero in the absence of repression.

One of the key problems, as he saw it, was the lack of familiarity his hostages would have with their situation. Muggles had spent decades watching criminals rob banks on television and the big screen; the general beats of the situation were known to them, almost cliché. The reality of it was different, of course, immediate and frightening, but it was still recognisable. By contrast, his current captives might not even know to be afraid of his weapon.

Lila was apparently rectifying that problem on her side of the room: two shots rang out, sharp and loud. “Next two go in your head,” she said harshly. “I want you to look at those holes and think about fucking with me.”

A man near Scott’s feet coughed as he came to. “What…?” he mumbled, wrists twisting against the zip tie. He began to try and roll over; Scott stepped on his back hard enough to make him wheeze.

“I think you should stay like that, mate. There’s a good lad,” Scott growled, pushing a bit harder until the man stopped writhing.

“Someone help!” a man gasped, struggling against his zip-tie.

“What is the meaning of this? Untie me!” a woman demanded.

The goblins, Scott noted, said nothing, their mouths shut and their eyes focussed on him.

“All right, you lot, I’ll make this real simple,” he said loudly, talking over the growing furore. “I’m robbing this bank, and you just happened to be here. So now you’re going to lie there on the floor and keep shtum, because if you don’t—”

Scott flipped the safety to auto and held down the trigger until nearly half his magazine was expended. Wasteful, but he wanted the moment to be as memorable as possible. The rounds tore into the wall at the end of the counters, shattering the façade and gouging pits into the wooden base board. One of the hostages shouted in pain and wriggled like a fish on a line, trying to dislodge a scalding hot cartridge from where it had fallen on her neck.

“I think that about covers it,” Scott shouted for the benefit of his deafened captives. “So just relax — have a kip, think about how you’ll sort out your life and live every day to its fullest if you survive this, whatever you’d like. But do it right where you are.”

“You won’t get away with this,” a voice muttered defiantly.

Scott blinked in surprise. Perhaps someone _had_ been watching Muggle movies. “Best mind your gob, before I shut it myself.”

He turned away from his captives just in time to hear Lila end what must have been a similar admonishment, given how her sentence closed with, “—ye fuckin’ wankstain.”

Scott was reluctant to take off his mask until he saw that all the hostages were awake and staying that way. He gestured to Lila to keep her mask on, and she gave him a quick thumbs-up.

The building was now under their control, for the time being. Gringotts had been intentionally built to avoid any secondary entrances; there was one way in and out, through the main doors. Bill had said there was rumoured to be tertiary access below ground, alternate paths where the tunnels connected to surface shafts. If that was true, no one but the goblins knew where they emerged or how to get to them. Scott was counting on the Ministry being unable to find any goblin willing to cooperate in time to make a difference, if such tunnel entrances even existed. The goblins would want to take the bank back, certainly, but only to place it even further under Ministry control? Scott figured the goblins would only tell the Ministry anything if concessions were made. Riddle would do no such thing, of course, and whatever happened next would only worsen relations between the goblins and his regime.

Scott extracted several strong cloth sacks from a side partition in one of the bags and set to work behind his half of the counters, scooping up every loose coin and emptying the drawers. It was a paltry sum compared to what lay beneath his feet, but he estimated he already had something close to five hundred Galleons, and that was without even accessing the ground floor vault or the offices. Enough money to satisfy someone who was desperate enough to rob Gringotts but too smart to try their luck down in the mines — exactly the image he was seeking to project.

As he turned away from the last counter, he saw one of the hostages huddled in a suspiciously protective position, likely attempting to conceal their own money. Scott ignored them, not having any interest in rifling through pockets. He wasn’t going to waste time scrounging for an irrelevant amount of chump change.

Another hostage, an older woman, was whispering to a man that Scott thought was probably her husband. She was telling him that they would be okay, and that the Aurors would be there soon. Her husband didn’t look very reassured. Perhaps he knew just how much things had changed, and that any government response would be more concerned with re-establishing control of the bank than the safety of the people inside. Scott wondered what his hostages would think if they knew their captors regretted the necessity of holding them.

It would probably be a scant comfort, all things considered.

Scott dropped his bounty near the duffel bags and pulled out a few more empty sacks. Behind the counters was an office door which led to separate counting rooms and the day vault, where the money for daily transactions was kept before it was sent to the vaults below. Considering the diminished traffic to Diagon Alley and the blizzard outside, Scott was expecting it to hold far less cash than was probably typical.

Whatever was in there would be sufficient for the first act of the show.

***---~**~---***

Ron rubbed his hands together, savouring what little warmth could be gained from friction. He was wearing the kind of snow gear he imagined they wore in the Arctic, but somehow his hands always seemed to be cold despite the relative comfort of the rest of him.

The building upon which he was perched had no windows with a good view of where Gringotts stood at the end of the alley, forcing him to be positioned on the roof. The alcove of the rooftop doorway provided the only shelter available for his thin stretch of space: the rest of the roof was angled upwards to a peak. As the snow increased, however, the wind chill had declined, an odd effect he had noticed before. The air warmed slightly as the flakes came down heavier and piled upon the ground.

The Disillusionment Charm he was under had always been more effective at night, but near-blizzard conditions were a close second. He was practically invisible save for signs of his movement, which were quickly erased by the falling snow and couldn’t be seen from street level, anyway. He was a bit worried that if it kept up, he’d be buried, eventually. If he had to get away in a hurry, he might be in trouble.

It was a very peaceful scene, the snow on the nearly-empty Alley. It did not mirror Ron’s mood. He and Ginny had both raged against their duties, loathe to be left outside. However, the assignments simply made sense (even Harry’s, if only because it was his Cloak). Ron deeply resented that. He wanted to be with Hermione, no matter how inefficient it was. Back in the old days they would have probably all piled under the Cloak and stumbled their way through a series of mistakes until victory was, somehow, achieved. That’s how it had always worked before.

Looking back, he could see just how lucky they’d been at all sorts of times, but it was hard to care when Hermione was inside the bank and he was sitting on a bloody building, waiting for something to happen. He’d watched her walk up the street and enter the building, holding his breath when she reached the sentries. He’d wanted so badly to sod the entire stupid plan and just run to her. But he’d made a promise, and he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t realise just how badly everything would go if he abandoned his post.

So, he stood, and he watched, and he tried to ignore the gnawing frustration in his gut.

At least he’d had a great view of the Death Eater guards getting what they had coming. Scott kicked the shite out of them in about three seconds flat, and in a manner which had been pleasingly brutal. He was disappointed he couldn’t see into the bank itself, but he knew the show was just getting started.

The first sign of any official response came about fifteen minutes after the Kharans had entered the bank. Three figures in Auror robes came up the Alley, pushing their way through the snow. The response time was slower than expected. Ron didn’t know if that was because of the storm, the chaos the Ministry was in after You-Know-Who’s takeover, or the low number of witnesses. There were only three of them, so Ron reckoned they were acting on the word of a single person. That probably wasn’t enough of an outcry to bring a real force.

Ron reached into his collar and awkwardly snapped open the mirror sewn on the inside. It wasn’t the most convenient system, but Hermione and Sophie hadn’t been able to finish anything more complex before it had been time to enact the plan. He pushed his coat up a bit so his mouth was closer to the Protean device.

He started to say Scott’s name and caught himself at the last second, remembering they weren’t using any real names. It seemed like an unnecessary precaution to Ron, but Scott had insisted. “Sword Lead, you’ve got three Aurors coming up to the bank,” he reported, hoping that was the right name for Scott.

 **“Copy, Highground,”** Scott said quietly.

 **“I don’t see them yet,”** Ginny said. **“Wait — there they are.”**

The three figures trudged up the icy steps and tried the door. When it wouldn’t budge, the person in front began banging on it. No amount of noise provoked a reaction, and, having exhausted their most obvious options, they gathered together with hands gesturing and heads nodding in discussion. Ron wished he could hear what they were saying.

One of them turned back to the door with wand raised. The front doors of Gringotts were the most permeable portion of the building, but Ron doubted they were vulnerable to simple unlocking spells. It had been part of the plan to chain the doors shut from the inside, anyway, so there wasn’t anything to unlock from the outside. The Aurors still spent several minutes trying a variety of subtle tricks. They were clearly reluctant to damage the premises.

Having failed to open the doors non-violently, they resorted to power. Blasting Curses impacted against the frosted bronze, the Aurors searching for weakness. The outer set of doors opened inwards, the hinges hidden, and the both doors were so finely made that the gap between them was all but invisible. The attackers’ efforts left the bronze pitted and scorched, but failed to create any major structural damage. Still, it was only a matter of time. The front entrance of Gringotts was strong, but decorative. The real defences lay far beneath.

Lila’s voice came through the mirror, quiet and a bit hard to understand. **“What’s all the noise?”**

 **“They’re blasting the doors. No luck yet, but they’ve done some damage,”** Ginny reported.

The clamour of the explosions was beginning to draw a small crowd. A handful of curious onlookers had exited the nearby shops and houses to gather on the street corners across from the bank, braving the weather to investigate. One of the Aurors left the other two and hurried back down the steps, motioning to the people and shouting for them to keep clear.

The remaining Aurors continuing chipping away at the doors. Ron was starting to wonder why they didn’t just go and bring some more help. Perhaps they wanted more to report than an inability to get inside? Whatever report they’d received had led them to confirm that Gringotts was sealed, but not why that was so. Did they care about the men who had been stationed outside? Or were these real Aurors, not Death Eaters, and therefore not particularly concerned about the fate of the sentries? Were there even any real Aurors _left?_ Again, Ron wished he could hear them. He’d have given a lot for some really long Extendable Ears.

The Aurors were concentrating their attacks on a small segment of the left door. Each explosive report echoed through the alley; gusts of smoke billowed from the door and were quickly caught up and wiped away by the sweeping snow. Ron wasn’t close enough to see if they were effective.

 **“Gin, are they getting through?”** he asked her.

 **“I think they’re trying to make a hole just big enough to see,”** she replied.

That was more likely than breaking the door entirely, Ron supposed. If they made the hole large enough, they might be able to unlock the chain through it.

After a few more rattling volleys, the Aurors ceased their attacks. The lead one approached the door, pointing a wand at the battered section. Probably cooling it, Ron guessed, if the Auror intended to touch it. The plumes of steam trailing from the scorched door lessened. The Auror bent down to inspect the damage.

** “There’s definitely a hole. It’s small, though. They still might be able to see the lock,” **

Ginny said.

The Auror put their face to the left side of the gap, trying to spot the unknown obstruction. They must have seen the locked chain; pulling their head back, they put their hand through the opening—

—and were quite suddenly pulled tight against the door, cheek smashed against it and their free hand pushing futilely against the metal.

***---~**~---*** 

Lila stepped through the smoke in the antechamber, glad she was still wearing her mask. When she’d reopened the inner doors, the trapped fumes had rolled out and upwards, pouring towards the ceiling of the lobby. The door looked hot, and the temperature in the antechamber was noticeably greater than the rest of the bank. Ginny had said they were attempting to make a hole, and Lila wanted to know if they had succeeded.

Sure enough, there was a bright spot in the right hand door, the smoke stirring near it as the outside wind howled across the opening. A few errant snowflakes whirled their way inside. Lila quickly stepped past the hole and stood against the wall. The light from outside briefly dimmed as someone placed their head near the breach.

“It’s chained shut!” a man shouted, voice loud in the empty antechamber. There was a pause. “…I might be,” the man replied to whomever was speaking. “Hang on, then, I just need the right angle.” The light came back full force, then dimmed again as a hand protruded through the opening, wand tilted towards the chain.

Lila struck, snatching the hand by the wrist, squeezing and twisting. The man yelled in pain as his wand clattered to the stone floor. Lila braced a foot against the bronze and pulled hard enough to rattle the door as the man slammed into it. He pulled back, but his effort was useless.

Lila drew one of her knives. “You listenin’, wanker?” she said loudly.

The man stopped struggling, going stiff instead. “Yes. Yes, I hear you,” he said, voice muffled now that his head wasn’t near the opening.

“And you feel that? That’s me fuckin’ knife,” Lila told the Auror, digging the point near his ulnar artery. “So don’t act the maggot. We’ve got hostages in here. Now hump off ‘til we’re ready to talk.”

She pushed him away none too gently and withdrew, closing the inner doors behind her. Scott was pacing between the sets of hostages, keeping an eye on things. He paused and favoured her with a questioning look when she approached — or she assumed it was questioning, anyway. She couldn’t even see his eyes behind the reflected lights on his mask.

“Company,” she said as she passed him.

“They here for a chinwag?” Scott asked.

“We’ll see.”

***---~**~---*** 

Ron watched as the Auror at the door stumbled backwards into the snow. Someone must have grabbed them, Ron reasoned. He didn’t know which Kharan was responsible, not that it really mattered. He wouldn’t have wanted either of them pulling on his arm, not even if they were joking. He’d taken a friendly punch or two from Scott, and hadn’t much enjoyed it.

The Auror staggered back to their feet. The other Auror nearby was moving to help, though the first one brushed them off when they got there. All three Aurors reconvened at the foot of the stairs and the one who looked to be in charge began gesturing tersely, probably giving out orders. The head Auror then hurried away, moving as fast they were able through the building snow. The protections that prevented Apparition had added an extra layer of complication to the Gringotts plan, but at least they cut both ways.

 **“They’re going to get help,”** Ginny said into her mirror.

 **“Understood,”** Lila murmured.

Ron’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch or two. Whatever sort of force was coming, Hermione and Harry would be trapped by it. It was probably a stupid impulse, but Ron couldn’t help but wish he would be trapped by it, too. At least then he’d be doing something besides _watching._ Why had he ever agreed to such a plan? What’d he been thinking?

 **“H— Um, Ghost? Are you all right?”** Ginny asked.

It took Harry a moment to reply. **“Yeah. I can’t really talk right now,”** he whispered.

 **“I want to come in,”** Ginny told him, though she didn’t say it as a demand, but rather a regret.

Harry’s whisper turned slightly frantic. **“You can’t. You know that.”**

** “Yeah, but—” **

Lila’s voice broke in. **“Overwatch, you park your butt and make sure I don’t lose mine. And keep this channel clear.”**

 **“I know, I’m… Just be careful, Ghost,”** Ginny said.

 **“I will,”** Harry replied, a dubious promise if Ron ever heard one.

Ron watched the bank and thought of Hermione, wondering how far below his feet she was. The wind picked up slightly, the air growing thicker with frozen flakes. As the snow caught in the corners and buried the kerbs, the small crowd on the walk began to thin. Without the excitement of the Blasting Curses, few of them seemed to want to stick around to experience the weather. Perhaps they also knew it might be better to make themselves scarce before the authorities arrived.

Ron thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but he a job to do.


	37. Wealth of Nations Part II

**37**

**Wealth of Nations**

**Part II**

\--- 

 _“An old, pre-Imperium tale, passed down_  
 _from origins unknown: A great door_  
 _blocked access to a conquered nation’s_  
 _treasures. The Army attempted to demolish_  
 _it, but their explosives could not mar it._  
 _The Fleet bombarded it, but it withstood_  
 _their heaviest shells. The Engineers tried_  
 _to dig, but it was sunk too deeply into the_  
 _earth. Then a Shaper-Indigen touched the_  
 _door, and opened it with a simple request_  
 _in the gate’s own language._  
  
_An unsophisticated parable, but one that still_  
 _holds true. It’s curious how the Local Shape_  
 _Manifestation Corps is often given such_  
 _little respect, considering how much they_  
 _are capable of. Of course, that disregard_  
 _from the other military sections lasts_  
 _right up until they need something.”_

 _—_ Dr. Kryna Ray, LSMC Ret., _Speaks in Colors, Sees in Tongues: Memoirs from the LSMC_

\---

The air within her Bubble-Head Charm was becoming stale. Hermione tried to breathe more shallowly, though she suspected it was a useless gesture. Her modified charm had been expanded in size as well as made much more difficult to see when in place. Despite the enlargement, breathing was already uncomfortable; but she wasn’t in danger, not yet. She simply worried that her heightened state was accelerating her oxygen consumption.

She needn’t worry much longer. Ahead, a cart was perched on its rails, ready for passengers. The air drifting in from the lobby was tinged with Draught, but the sloping tunnel ahead was cool and clear.

Sophie placed one hand on the iron edge and gracefully vaulted into the contraption. Hermione clambered in more awkwardly behind her, one hand on the strange, jangling sack that Harry had handed her, trying to prevent unnecessary noise. Ideally, there was no one to listen, the bank’s occupants having been rendered insensible. Still, there was no need to be reckless.

“Take this side,” Sophie said quietly, handing Hermione one corner of the clear plastic sheet she was unfolding. Together, they draped it over the cart and pinned it in place with the round magnets Sophie had in her pockets.

“Okay — hold on to your butt!” Sophie said with a light in her eyes, a strangely exuberant expression for the middle-aged visage she was wearing.

She placed her hands at the front of the cart where the goblins gripped. The cart, she had explained, was automated. The goblins wandlessly input the number of the destination vault, and then it followed a predetermined path on the rail system. It remained a mystery as to how the carts avoided colliding. The magic was old and complex and Sophie had only deciphered the most basic controls.

The cart suddenly shuddered forward, wheels clanking on the metal rails. The acceleration was excessive, in Hermione’s opinion. She held on tightly as she was pressed into the seat. Soon, they were practically flying through the tunnels. Surely their velocity would exceed the cart’s connection to the line? As corners and half-seen obstructions flashed past with terrifying speed, she hoped the cart’s ability to remain on the track wasn’t linked to a goblin pilot. And, if it was, that Sophie was doing whatever she needed to be doing to ensure their survival.

Vaults blinked by, along with endless branching tunnels and rails. The wind thrummed across the plastic over them, rippling it and creating a great deal of noise. There were defences all over, Hermione knew, most unseen until the moment they were sprung. Equally dangerous was the chance of encountering goblins with customers. Given the nature and speed of the rail system, that was unlikely, but anyone emerging from the catacombs could still be a threat to Harry and the two Kharadjai.

Probability was on their side, at least. The weather and the war had drastically decreased the number of customers, and the majority of clients made their withdrawals and deposits without directly accessing a vault. None of that totally precluded the chance, but at least it was unlikely to happen.

The cart made a precipitous downwards swoop, lodging Hermione’s stomach against her lungs. Then they were on a straightaway, the track stretching out before them in a dim, green-tinted cavern. Motion caught her eye; above the track, a large bucket was beginning to tip.

“It’s the Thief’s Downfall!” she shouted to Sophie. She reached up and tugged down on the plastic sheet, hunching over.

The water hit them with a heavy slap, pushing Hermione’s head down and sloshing coldly across their transparent protection. It beaded on the plastic and collected in the creases, but most it sluiced off and ran down the sides of the cart. Hermione dropped her hands to touch her clothing, then her face. She needn’t have worried: not a drop had touched her, and the Polyjuice held.

The plastic had done its job well, though it had now become substantially more difficult to see through. They didn’t dare remove it, though, lest they be unprepared for a second bout of the Downfall.

At last, the tunnel abruptly widened and the cart began to slow. The plastic covering was starting to fog from the combined heat of the cart’s occupants, and Hermione couldn’t see much. Sophie wiped at it with her wool sleeve and peered through.

“This must be it, I can see a dragon,” she said.

They carefully removed the sheet, making sure not to lose the magnets on the outside of the cart. The air was dank and cold, smelling of water and limestone. Several vaults were set into the slick, rippled stone wall parallel to the track. There, a chained dragon watched them with vicious, milky eyes. It looked like an older dragon, pale and heavily scarred.

“He doesn’t look very friendly,” Sophie remarked.

“I wouldn’t be, either, if I were chained down here,” Hermione said, looking warily at the beast. She reached into the cart and withdrew the Clankers. “How do these work?”

“I don’t know if the rhythm matters, but the goblin shook them like this: one-two-three-four.” Sophie demonstrated with her hands, setting the cadence.

Hermione shook the Clankers in the same pattern, imitating Sophie’s motions. The eerie jangling echoed through the cave, taking on strange reverberations that seemed to dig into her skull. The dragon first shook its head angrily, but, as the noise persisted, it cringed and slunk away, disappearing into a side tunnel littered with hay and bones.

“Better keep those ready, in case he gets bored,” Sophie advised as she started towards the door.

Hermione had every intention of keeping the Clankers handy. She couldn’t see into the side tunnel, and so simply hoped that the dragon had retreated far enough into its den that they would be able to anticipate its return. It had moved with surprising silence for a creature so large.

The vault was lacking any obvious point of access; there were no latches or keyholes. She knew that a goblin’s touch would open it, releasing the magical safeguards with a hidden command. Sophie seemed confident as she stepped forward, though it was a bit hard to tell through the Polyjuice. She was normally so much easier to read, at least compared to the other Kharadjai.

“You’re certain you have the key?” Hermione asked just before Sophie placed her palm against the metal. Getting trapped inside wouldn’t be much of an issue for Sophie, should her apertures be able to function, but any alarms raised or additional traps triggered would render all their careful planning useless.

“It’s binary,” Sophie explained. “‘Are you a goblin, yes or no?’ I just have to push ‘yes’.”

That seemed very simple, though Hermione supposed that goblin magic was inscrutable enough to magical humans that the goblins could get away with it. It was just Riddle’s bad luck that all magic was the same to Sophie, nothing but constructions woven from the threads of the shape.

Sophie pressed her hand to the cold bulwark and the vault began to open with a deep, grating rumble. As it parted, the dim light reflected off a display of wealth that went beyond simple ostentation. Mounds of Galleons were haphazardly piled, strewn with other valuables and the occasional heirloom. It was the hoard of a conquering despot, a collection of spoils tossed carelessly aside into a disorganised treasury. It was like some grotesque parody of wealth. Hermione was disgusted. Was this what it meant to be an ancient pure-blood family? No wonder they clung so obsessively to their place in society and had such disproportionate societal influence compared to their numbers. Kings and nations had been bought for less.

“Oh, so _tacky,”_ Sophie murmured disapprovingly.

“It is a bit… disorganised,” Hermione said. The Horcrux had recently been added to the pile, so with any luck it wouldn’t be difficult to locate.

“Even Aunt Ruth wouldn’t do this with the money…” Sophie said, taking in the piles with her nose wrinkled.

“Remember, we must be cautious. I’m sure there are at least some of the enchantments that Bill told us of.”

“I’m not touching anything in a room like this, I’ve seen _Aladdin_!” Sophie declared, clasping her hands at her waist.

“But there are protections, yes?” Hermione asked, reluctant to cast any of her revealing spells in such a highly protected environment for fear of activating a countermeasure.

“Yes…” Sophie confirmed, her eyes going distant. “A duplicating spell and something else that produces heat.”

It was enough to know that much. Hermione carefully walked down the narrow aisle ahead, making sure not to step on anything. The vault was a minefield, and far from a simple storage room (not that any room containing such wealth displayed so indiscriminately could ever be innocuous). It was difficult not to touch anything at all, even with her arms tucked close to her sides. When her foot jostled a jewelled goblet, Sophie quickly snatched it up, bundling the duplicates in her arms. They vanished, leaving only the original, which she carefully placed back on the floor in the same spot.

“Whoops!” Sophie said with a silly twist of her lips, easing Hermione’s embarrassment.

“I’ll stay close to you, I’m afraid I might bump something else,” Hermione said. They continued looking, taking only the most measured of steps.

Despite the considered pace, it didn’t take long. Hermione soon spied the cup where it stood high atop a shelf on the wall. “There!” she exclaimed, pointing it out for Sophie.

Sophie peered upward. “Hmmm…”

“I suppose we should have brought someone taller,” Hermione mused.

“The shelf looks sturdy,” Sophie noted.

That seemed true enough. It was a thick, wooden shelf bolted directly to the stone, one of many. They were lined with precious objects, most of which were wrought of gold and other heavy metals. The shelves were as solidly built as the rest of the vault.

Sophie must have decided to test her hypothesis, because she suddenly hurled herself upwards and caught the bottom of the lowest shelf. Hermione sucked in a worried breath as Sophie’s toes nearly touched the top of a treasure pile, but it ended up being a close call. She clambered upwards with care, placing her feet and hands in the gaps between trophies and heirlooms, and occasionally breaking the spells when she had to. Before long, she was clinging to the correct shelf, resting on the one just beneath.

“Aha!” Sophie crowed, as if she’d outwitted the shelves somehow. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, I am,” Hermione said. She reached into one of her coat pockets, ready to do her part. The small metal cup she had stored there would aid the transfiguration by providing a relatively analogous starting point.

Sophie gripped the golden handle of Hufflepuff’s cup, destroying its protections. She looked over her shoulder and pushed off the wall, landing with the grace of a gymnast precisely in the centre of the aisle, her bent knees coming within a millimetre of the closest treasure pile. Spinning on her heels, she presented the Horcrux to Hermione, who had to steel herself to avoid cringing away from it. They needed to hurry before it awoke.

Hermione had practised similar transfigurations multiple times already at Grimmauld, and had only lacked the exact contours of the cup’s appearance. With the real object directly in front of her, it was a simple enough task to create an exacting replica. She held it forward, comparing the two.

Sophie looked between them. “Well, I can’t tell any difference,” she said.

Hermione thought the real one was slightly shinier, the engraved badger reflecting the light in a more brilliant fashion. But without a side-by-side comparison, the difference would be indiscernible.

Sophie carefully put the false Horcrux into place using a Levitation Charm whilst Hermione dug through her handbag and pulled out Scott’s old strongbox, which had proven effective at dampening the influence of Horcruxes before. She cringed away from the cup as it was dropped in and closed the box quickly, tucking it back away. It made her skin crawl, knowing what the cup really was.

Before leaving, she double-checked the vault. The false cup was in its place, and Sophie had oriented it to match the original precisely. The floor was free from dust and there were no obvious footprints. Everything was in its jumbled place. She doubted anyone could tell even if it weren’t.

Hermione shook the Clankers once again before exiting the vault, just in case. A quick peek outside confirmed the dragon had remained well clear of them. The cart sat empty where they had left it, awaiting their return.

Sophie once again pressed her palm to the metal of the vault door and it ground shut behind them as they hurried back to their conveyance. The traps of the tunnels were designed to keep people out, not in, but they still put the plastic sheet back in its place. Despite having the cup, success was far from certain. There was no need to be careless.

***---~**~---*** 

Waiting, Scott reflected, was usually the worst part of an enterprise. He and Lila had been taking turns escorting hostages to the bathroom, a privilege that many had turned down once they realised they would be performing their excretions under observation and still restrained. Only the most desperate accepted the humiliation, and any who did were returned to a different hostage group.

Until the full force arrived outside of the bank, there wasn’t much else to do. If the robbery in which Scott was currently embroiled had been enacted under the Ministry proper, he would have been expecting an opportunity to open lengthy negotiations, easily buying whatever amount of time was needed. But the nature of the current administration left him wondering if any such overtures would be made. It was difficult to predict without knowing more; how many pre-Riddle Aurors were left? How many had resigned voluntarily, how many had been Muggle-born, how many had been ousted in favour of nepotism? It could easily be the case that the Death Eaters comprised the Auror unit in its entirety, ensuring there would be no interference in their criminal activities.

If so, Scott postulated that their first act would be one of violence. Riddle wouldn’t desire his new government to appear weak, and the bank wasn’t an asset that he could afford anyone to trifle with. The Ministry controlled Gringotts and Gringotts controlled the money and money controlled the world. Riddle’s organisation had already been hard at work undermining goblin influence, no doubt with the intention of eventually ousting them from the bank entirely. Inadvertently, Scott and Lila had handed Riddle’s puppet administration exactly the excuse it needed to seize the bank.

“You, and you,” Scott said shortly, temporarily interrupting his train of thought to stand two random hostages up and push them towards Lila. They were shuffling their captives regularly, promoting confusion and ensuring Hermione and Sophie could be easily reintroduced.

Scott was reasonably certain that Riddle wouldn’t make a personal appearance. Not in public, not while he was still maintaining the fiction of a legitimate Ministry to avoid giving the growing social unrest a clear evil to rebel against. It was a surprisingly subtle act from a tyrant who had been, by all accounts, more often anything but. Perhaps he had been strongly advised to his present course. Or perhaps he was simply distracted by other concerns. The second option seemed more likely to Scott. Riddle didn’t seem the sort to accept even the best advice if he didn’t already agree with it. Though, Scott had to admit, it wasn’t as if he knew all that much about the man beyond what his actions told.

 **“Uh, Sword, there’s a lot of Aurors out here, now. Maybe fifteen or so,”** Ron reported.

Scott stepped away from the hostages and pushed the mirror sewn into his balaclava closer to his mouth. “Disposition?” he said quietly.

 **“Looks to me like they’re getting ready for a fight,”** Ginny assessed.

 **“Yeah, they all got wands out,”** Ron concurred. **“There aren’t many with proper robes. I’m not sure they’re really Aurors.”**

Death Eaters, then; for the bulk of the force, at least. Possibly all of them. It’s what Scott would have done, if he were them, to prevent having anyone on the assault force drag their feet at a crucial moment out of moral or legal concerns. It might simplify things, though. Real Aurors were trained, and might have been taught how to best assault a fixed position. Death Eaters would lack the same precision. Of course, they would also lack any concern for the people inside.

“Copy,” Scott said, and bent down to dig into his duffel bag. He pulled out one of the still-loaded MGLs and walked over to place it on Lila’s counter where she stood. “Backup,” he told her.

Lila set her M249 on the counter next to the launcher and switched the safety.

Scott hurried back to his side and crouched behind the end of the counters. He placed the side of his weapon against the corner of the varnished wood, aiming towards the door. Satisfied with the arc of the firing position, he let the M4A1 hang against his chest and picked up the other loaded launcher. If they repelled the assault quickly enough, they might be able to force the Death Eaters into negotiation. It would be a delaying tactic, almost certainly, but that was what Scott wanted, too.

 **“Mate, I think they’re blowing up the door!”** Ron said in warning.

The entrance to the antechamber rattled violently as the bronze doors to the street were struck by spells. Then came the sound of shearing metal, followed by a tremendous bang. Scott figured one of the outer doors had fallen inward against the floor.

“Now you’re going to get yours!” one of the women held captive shouted at Scott over the cacophony.

“Don’t hold your breath, love,” Scott yelled back at her.

There was a brief pause, probably as the Death Eaters cleared away the broken outer doors. Scott resisted the urge to shake his head. So sloppy. If Scott and Lila hadn’t already been ready, they would have had plenty of time to become so. The first few seconds of an assault were crucial, the time in which the pendulum swung between swift resolution and protracted firefight. The Death Eaters were slow and obvious, which might have guaranteed the deaths of many hostages were Scott and Lila what they purported to be. Instead, Riddle’s goons were marching into a tightly funnelled kill zone. Their only chance would be to use the innate versatility of their magic to counter the firepower they were up against.

That required an actual _understanding_ of what they were up against. Scott knew they would understand, eventually, but not until they suffered accordingly.

The antechamber doors cracked almost imperceptibly open as someone peeked through. Scott held his fire. The door slid shut — and then burst open, four Death Eaters pushing through with more behind them.

Scott pulled the trigger twice. Two 40mm flashbangs flew from the barrel and exploded in the midst of the group. The second popped just over the head of the man second from the right, igniting his hair. The attackers reeled, blind, deaf and dizzy. At least two of them appeared to have been immediately rendered unconscious.

Lila’s SAW chattered to horrid life as the flashbangs erupted. She traversed a precise line of death across the doorway. The attackers tumbled under the fire, falling back as if they’d run into a wall, the brief jets of blood and dust being torn from them floating against the light from the open door like some macabre cloud. Stone chips flew from the antechamber walls, wood was gouged and popped in splintered showers. Scott joined her fire, placing careful shots into those that fell or anyone who appeared to be out of the suppressive torrent long enough to raise a wand.

Those in the front were cut down in seconds. Those in the middle received fire sometimes straight through the bodies of their comrades. Anyone still able to see, mostly those in the rear half of the group, fled into the snow with bullets snapping at their backs. The sheer volume of Lila’s fire created a dusty miasma that was sucked out into the building storm.

Scott picked off a woman who was trying to crawl into the temporary safety of the antechamber’s sides and dropped the last man out the door with two shots to the back, sending him sprawling out into the light. Lila ended her final burst, shredding the head and shoulders of someone slumped in the entryway, sending a large scrap of robe fluttering away and a thick spray of blood and pulpy flesh against the broken bronze door. There was the clanking of her spent brass and links showering the floor (and the hostages) behind her counter, and then silence returned.

Scott listened for any sign of a renewed assault, and heard nothing but the wind outside and the sounds of distress from the hostages. He glanced over at Lila: the thin smoke rising from her weapon and the cases strewn around her was drifting gently towards the chandelier above her, making it look like she was in some sort of dive bar noir. He would have shared the observation, as it was one she would probably appreciate, but it wasn’t really the time for it.

“Cover,” he said, and scurried forward along the counter, staying out of line of sight to the outside.

 **“I heard that all the way up here,”** Ron said. **“They’re all back at the bottom. What’s left, anyway. Some of them fell down the stairs and there’s one trying to crawl the rest of the way.”** Ron was probably disturbed by the sight, though it was difficult to tell through the quiet mirror.

Scott peered around the door and saw no one who was still standing. He quickly pushed or tossed anyone impeding the doors fully into the antechamber, not bothering to check who was still alive. The OpFor could see to their wounded. He closed the antechamber doors and returned to his post.

Lila tapped on her mask, and then indicated the hostages. Scott nodded and pulled off his own mask, clipping it to his belt.

 **“A few are going back up the stairs, but they’re being really careful,”** Ginny suddenly informed them.

Scott readied himself, but figured they were probably a recovery team, not a threat. He glanced backwards, making sure Harry was staying out of the line of fire. The Cloaked teen had taken cover in one of the alcoves to that led to the rail system, and hadn’t yet moved.

Ginny confirmed the nature of the approaching party. **“They’re moving the… people,”** she said, a bit subdued.

It was easy to forget sometimes how young his Primes were, considering how much they’d already been through. Obviously, they wouldn’t take well to the procession of perforated bodies being carried out of the antechamber. Scott couldn’t really blame them. Just because he was accustomed didn’t mean he should expect others to be, or had lost sight of how dangerous such familiarity was.

In the meantime, he and Lila had people of their own to move. He stepped over his hostages, moving the middle of the rows. “Budge up,” he barked at a man in a thin brown coat, hauling the hostage to his feet. “Let’s go.”

***---~**~---*** 

The cart came to a rather abrupt stop — Hermione nearly knocked her nose against the handrail. Sophie shot her an apologetic look, but said nothing. Hermione followed suit, aware any conversation might be heard, depending on the situation. They should keep their silence until they were certain it was safe to quietly converse. She carefully climbed out of the cart and was going to surreptitiously peek into the lobby when Sophie reached out and caught her by the coat, pulling her back. Sophie pointed towards the floor of the doorway. Following the indication, Hermione looked more closely and saw a tripwire cleverly concealed by its contrast to a gap in the tiles beneath it, blending into the mortar. She couldn’t see what it was attached to, but it was probably one of the hand-thrown flashbangs, or perhaps even Sleeping Draught.

A bit put out she hadn’t been warned ahead of time, Hermione stood back and let Sophie proceed first. Had Scott really been counting on Sophie to discern the trap? Or had he told her? Perhaps Sophie had simply worked with Scott enough times to have known to expect it. Hermione still would have appreciated a warning.

Her mild outrage was stalled when she received such a warning. Harry’s altered voice suddenly came from somewhere to her left. “Hermione, I’m right here,” he said. “Be careful, Lila put a bomb in the door.”

“A bomb?” she whispered back, alarmed.

“A flashbang,” Sophie quickly explained. “Not an explosive.”

“I don’t know, they set that one bloke on fire easy enough,” Harry said quietly. “There’s a wire, so just step over.” A pause. “…Did you get it?” he said, sounding almost afraid to ask.

“We got it,” Hermione whispered back with triumph.

She could almost hear him grinning in relief. “That’s brilliant. You both are. Hold on, I’ll tell them you’re back,” he said.

Hermione and Sophie bypassed the trap and waited in the space between just before the door exited into the lobby proper. From where they stood, they could see the back wall and the mural Hermione had examined not so long before. Sounds filtered in from the right, where Scott and Lila held their captives. Hermione knew that they had been periodically shuffling hostages from side to side, keeping them disoriented. It was also the method through which Hermione and Sophie would be reintroduced.

A soft rustling signalled Harry’s returned. “Here, turn around,” he said, one arm emerging from beneath the Cloak with a zip tie in hand.

Hermione didn’t care to be restrained, but knew it had to be done. “Not too tight, please,” she requested, complying.

Hermione and Sophie took quick drinks of their Polyjuice before being shackled. Once both women were in their disposable manacles, Harry disappeared yet again. Hermione wished she knew more of what was happening. Now that she had returned to the surface, she knew her mirror would be functioning once more, free from the dampening of the wards below. But she didn’t dare try to utilise it for fear of the sound reaching elsewhere. Scott and Lila’s mirrors had been sewn into their balaclavas, close to the ear and had their volume lowered for just that reason.

“Up! Both of you, move it!” Lila shouted. Hermione presumed that meant her turn was fast approaching.

Soon enough, Harry took Hermione’s hand. “Here, get under the Cloak,” he told her.

Hermione slipped beneath the fabric, taking the opportunity to examine her friend. It was difficult to judge his precise state, given his magically altered appearance, but his hair was limp with sweat despite the relative coolness of the lobby interior, and he looked a shade paler than she thought was usual for his borrowed pallor. His eyes were focussed, though, and he seemed to know what he was doing. She was glad to see he was unharmed and holding up fairly well. Most of the adventures they’d found themselves in hadn’t ever given Harry much time to contemplate the situation, allowing him to play to his innate strength — heroic instinct, a trait Hermione had always admired even as it had left her fearing for his life and sanity more times than she cared to remember. Scott and Lila ran a different sort of operation, one that required contemplation and had guidelines to be followed. Harry was adapting at least fairly well. Hermione had no doubt he’d been possessed of the urge to do something brave and stupid at various points, but at least he was suppressing it for the good of the plan.

Shuffling beneath the Cloak, they passed the end of Lila’s side of the counters, where her frightened captives were lying uncomfortably on their stomachs and sides. Harry steered them to the centre of the lobby, between the counters.

“Crouch down,” he whispered, and when she did so he stepped away, leaving her exposed.

Scott approached her immediately, taking her by the arm. She looked up at him and he winked at her with unfamiliar eyes. She felt somewhat reassured by that, despite his alien appearance. He took her to Lila’s side and handed her off to the Kharadjai woman, who also took her by the arm and then lowered her into a gap in one of the rows.

“No talking on this side, either,” Lila told her in a harsh Irish lilt, and then walked back to the head of the line.

The floor was hard against her stomach, even through her coat. At least it wasn’t cold, the space having been warmed by its previous occupant. She assumed that Sophie was being given the same treatment behind the opposite counter.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on her hair as best she could, uninterested in making eye contact with any of her fellow prisoners. Better to be as unmemorable as possible, just in case. With the cup safely tucked away in her handbag, it would all be over soon enough, one way or another. 

***---~**~---***  

“It’s done,” Harry said quietly.

Scott nodded shortly in satisfaction. Hermione and Sophie had come through, as he’d expected. Save for the assault, thus far everything had gone roughly according to plan, which was the best that could ever be hoped for in such a situation. The attack had been shut down quickly enough that the plan didn’t need to be altered, not yet. Now it was simply a matter of getting the cup out of the bank. Getting himself out would be nice, of course, but the cup had to be destroyed above all other considerations. Well, except for getting Harry out of the bank, too. But with his Cloak, he’d have the easiest time escaping of any of them.

Still, a little extra motivation wouldn’t hurt. “When you get outside, go to Ginny and get her underneath the Cloak, just in case,” he murmured to Harry.

Harry quickly agreed, probably too caught up in the danger of the moment to consider why Scott had suggested extra protection for Ginny specifically.

Now, to prepare for the grand exit. First, all the hostages would have to be gathered in the centre of the lobby. Then would begin the delicate task of preparing for everyone’s simultaneous flight. Given the logistics involved, they were going to have to trust each person to look after themselves, at least for the moment of escape. Speed would be key, as would splitting enemy focus. Scott preferred to work as a duo with Lila, but in this instance fleeing in opposite directions would greatly lessen the chances of becoming pinned down or surrounded, as well as increasing the chaos needed for the Primes to disappear. They would need to coordinate with Ron and Ginny to know the composition and placement of the opposition, and it would be nice if they could buy themselves a little more time to be sure there wouldn’t be another assault right in the middle of—

 **“Someone’s coming up the steps, just one person. They’ve got their hands up,”** Ginny said through the mirror. **“I think they want to talk.”**

And there it was. Scott quickly gestured to Lila, bringing her over. “You talk to the negotiator. No need to confirm it’s the two of us, if there’s any doubt left. You got a demand?”

She nodded. “Had an idea. What if they want to see the hostages?”

“No, we can’t let anyone in. Tell them no one comes in until we get what we want.”

Lila jogged to the door, ensuring the negotiator wouldn’t get a chance to peek inside. “That’s as close as you get!” she shouted, opening the antechamber door just a crack, showing no part of herself.

Scott went back to the counters to watch both sets of hostages. He didn’t want Harry to be forced to reveal his presence if one of the captives decided to try something. So far no one had been dumb enough to try anything. Scott figured that he and Lil had been convincingly violent, which was impressive since they hadn’t seriously hurt any of the hostages. Perhaps the magical citizens would have been more inclined to rebellion had their captors not been using frightening and unfamiliar weaponry that deafened and confused. The new lack of Muggle-borns was probably working in their favour, awful as that was.

Scott could hear Lila loudly demanding the keys to the mid-security vaults, which was clever of her. It was a greedy, in-character insistence and almost impossible to facilitate, granting plenty of time. It was simply a question of how long it would take for the forces outside to regain their boldness (or receive an order from high enough it couldn’t be ignored). With Hermione and Sophie back in the lobby, however, Scott didn’t think they’d be around long enough for it to matter. The next clash would occur in the streets, and it was Scott and Lila’s turn to provoke it.

Lila closed the door and returned to the end of the counters. “They want one of those good faith signs,” she said.

“Give ‘em a goblin. That’ll piss them right off,” Scott told her.

Lila picked a goblin at random, pulling him up and marching him to the door. Cutting his restraint, she shoved him quickly through the opening. “Run free, you little shite,” she drawled.

Scott went back to his hostages to make sure the sudden release of one of their fellows wasn’t giving them any ideas. The people on his side remained oblivious, though, so Scott went over to Lila’s side. He was half-expecting some questions regarding the freed hostage, but it seemed the brief and exceedingly loud exchange of fire had knocked the rebellion out of anyone so inclined. He supposed they probably couldn’t hear that well from their position on the floor, anyway, not even taking into account all the recent shooting, and it wasn’t as if they could see the door. They probably thought the goblin had been moved to Scott’s side, if they weren’t too afraid to think anything.

When Lila returned, he strolled to the back of the room, out of earshot. “All right, I need to know what you see,” he said into his mirror.

 **“They’ve moved a load of carts to the bottom of the stairs, like a wall. But not a real one, you could walk through or just go off the stairs to the sides, still. It’s for them, mostly,”** Ron described. **“There’s more of them now, but not by much with the ones you got. A few went into the shop at the corner, I think that’s where they’re planning. The bloke who came up to talk to you is in there.”**

 **“Yeah, I can see through some of the shop windows, there’s five or six in there. They’re arguing right now. There’s also two ‘round the building where you were, someone must have seen you come out,”** Ginny reported.

Scott considered that as he went back to his side of the room. It sounded like the Death Eaters were more concerned with protecting themselves than keeping the bank sealed, and weren’t expecting anyone to try exiting the building; at least, not as long as there were still demands being made. It would be against Scott and Lila’s supposed interest to rock the boat before they got what they wanted. The Death Eaters didn’t understand that the siblings _already_ had what they wanted.

“I need to know the moment anyone moves on the stairs,” he muttered into the mirror. “All Element, ready for exfil.”

They had some decisions to make about what to bring and what to leave. Having no desire to give munitions to the Death Eaters, the PE4 charges at the bottom of the duffel bags would ensure nothing usable ended up in enemy hands. The MGL launchers would be left, as would the extra ammunition. The money had been packed into the emptied bags and then magically lightened by Harry. Still an encumbrance, but they couldn’t abandon their hard-won cash without casting suspicion on their actions. Money was supposed to be the point of the whole thing, after all, as far as outside parties were concerned.

Lila hurried to the front of the room and sealed the doors with a couple ties. With the temporary protection in place, they were ready to begin moving their reluctant charges. Scott surveyed his half of the cowering hostages and made some quick decisions about the best order in which to relocate them.

He stepped between the rows to get to the far end. “Up,” he ordered, reaching down to tug on the collars of two women, one of whom was Sophie.

It took a bit longer to get everyone grouped than he would have liked. Some seemed eager to stretch their legs, even if only for a moment, but most were unsteady and frightened to the point they almost didn’t care when Scott tried to hurry them. But with Lil working on her half, it wasn’t too long before the entire mass of hostages were on their knees before the antechamber.

Lila walked forward to stand before the group, glaring down at them. “I’m cutting ye loose,” she informed them. “He’ll be watching. And if you test me, I’ll just stick you instead. Sit fuckin’ still and don’t move your hands or I’ll fuckin’ have them.”

Scott kept his weapon trained on the hostages as Lila freed them, ensuring they understood the price of defiance. The witches and wizards in the group had most of the fight taken out of them when their wands had been collected. Wizarding Britain depended very heavily on their wands and easily lapsed into a strong sense of psychological powerlessness without them. The goblins, however, were a renewed threat. Scott made sure to cover them closely, letting them get a good look down the barrel of the M4. At least they seemed crafty enough to realise he could kill them before they could get even a nonverbal, wandless spell off. They were especially careful, compared to their human fellows, to not make any sudden moves.

“All right, ladies and gents,” Scott boomed as Lila was cutting through the last tie, “the time has come to go our separate ways. Parting is such sweet sodding sorrow, but I’m right fucking sick of looking at you lot! So everyone, on your feet!”

The hostages stood uncertainly, hope mingling with their fear. Scott and Lila circled them with weapons at the ready. They each took a door handle.

“On the count of three, the doors will open and you’ll be on your merry way. If you stick around, I’ll plug you ‘til you look like strawberry jam; I could use a laugh. If you’re not keen on that, then best you fucking scarper. On three, I trust you can count…” Scott gripped the handle tightly and leaned back. “ONE. TWO. THREE!”

The door flew open and the hostages surged out in a desperate, sprinting mass, tripping over each other and shoving their way into the snow.

***---~**~---*** 

“ONE,” Scott said loudly, one hand on the door and the other keeping his weapon firmly pointed at the group.

Hermione cringed a bit when the barrel passed in her direction, though she trusted Scott not to shoot her. In the event he was forced to open fire, however, her first act would be to drop straight to the floor. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen; not when they were so close!

“TWO,” Scott bellowed.

She tensed and readied to run, clutching her handbag close. She had the strap firmly around her shoulder, beneath her coat. If she were to lose the bag, everything would be for naught. She pictured the Alley in her mind: the stairs, the snowy streets and, at the far end, the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron where the wards ended and she could make her escape. It seemed very far away, just then.

“THREE!”

The doors were pulled open and the hostages needed no further encouragement to bring an end to their ordeal. They rushed out, jostling each other in their frantic rush to safety. The antechamber echoed loudly with the clatter of shoes on the bloodied, pitted marble, and then a bitter swell of frosty air hit them as they passed the shattered outer doors. The blizzard raged outside, the sudden cold like a slap to the face as they emerged into a white whirlwind of snow and biting wind. Several hostages slipped on the steps, flailing and falling. Hermione nearly lost her balance when she was shoved aside by someone with a longer stride, but recovered in time to prevent a tumble. She could hear shouting from the bottom of the steps as she reached the halfway point. The snow cutting across the marble stair drowned out most of the words, but she could tell they were orders to stop. The next event would take care of that, she knew, and she only tried to run faster, feet sinking into the powder, arms extended for balance.

The hostages were gathering at the bottom, running into the wall of Aurors (or Death Eaters? Was there still a difference?). Hermione was stuck behind them as they yelled and pushed. The surge of people was beginning to calm, however, and she couldn’t find a way to push through. She felt the beginnings of panic. She couldn’t afford to be caught. Scott and Lila _needed_ to hurry.

Just as the flight of the hostages was about to be fully arrested, there was a muffled bang that Hermione felt in her chest, and a plume of smoke rolled out of the doors of the bank. Shots rang out from the top of the stairs, cutting sharply through the howling wind. Scott and Lila burst from the smoke with fire snapping from their weapons, puncturing the frozen air. The effect was immediate: the gathered opposition dove behind their carts as bullets popped loudly overhead. The hostages ran, screams rising from the crowd as it scattered, pushing desperately past the barricade and even knocking a few of the Death Eaters over. Hermione ran past the carts without pause, cringing and hugging her handbag tightly to herself as the shots cracked through the snow around her, so different and terrifying in sensation than when she had been behind or to the side of the weapon. The Doppler effect, and the supersonic report of accelerated metal, her mind distantly supplied. The sounds tugged at some deep self-preservation instincts.

The snow slowed her but she refused to stop, panting as she slogged forward. The besieged enemies at the barricade were shouting spells, casting back at Scott and Lila. Their response sounded thin in the face of the shattering volley being unloaded upon them; the Kharans were really pouring it on. But Hermione knew that with the hostages clogging the streets, most of the shots were being sent into the air and it was probably a matter of seconds before at least some of the Death Eaters realised they weren’t as suppressed as it seemed.

Hermione planned on being beyond reach by the time the enemy became organised. Already, the snow was whiting out the scene behind her; she glanced over her shoulder and could no longer see the columns at the top of the Gringotts stairs. She ran, breath steaming. She took a sharp turn into an alleyway next to Fortescue’s, desperately hoping the others would make their rendezvous. With the cup clutched against her, she knew she had to stick to her prior commitment. Waiting would jeopardise their singular objective. She didn’t know if she could make herself leave if she were alone. She didn’t want to find out.

For a brief moment, she didn’t recognise the two people huddle next to the bins, but it was Ron and Sophie in their Polyjuice guises.

Ron reached out and pulled her into a brief, fierce hug. “Harry has Gin,” he whispered reassuringly to her.

She nodded, relieved. Wherever those two were, at least they couldn’t be seen. “Are they going to meet us at the Cauldron?”

Ron shook his head. “I don’t know, I think they’re moving right now, but…”

“I know. We can’t wait,” Hermione said, no happier about that than he was. “They have the Cloak, they’ll be fine,” she said, trying to convince herself.

“Be quick, but don’t run,” Sophie said. “Come on!”

They exited the other side of the alley and moved up the street together with hurried strides. They weren’t alone; several clumps of other people were fleeing the scene with worried expressions. A mother carried two small children, both bundled up in blankets to shield them from the snow; a group of what Hermione thought were former hostages talked loudly over the wind, their voices carrying a hysterical edge. A large, ragtag formation of what looked like Snatchers ran down the Alley in the opposite direction, wands out. Sporadic gunfire echoed from the distance, muffled by the snow. The shots were becoming more distant, and came from different directions. Some of that was simply odd echoes, Hermione knew, but it also meant Scott and Lila had separated, and were moving quickly. She wished she could do something to slow or distract the enemy reinforcements headed the Kharadjai’s way, but that was exactly what she shouldn’t do. Scott and Lila were on their own, now.

The entrance to the Leaky Cauldron slowly faded in from behind the curtain of snow. The portal was open, the occasional pop of Apparition drifting out as bystanders and escaping captives fled the Alley. As she stepped through, she paused to look back into the teeth of the blizzard. The dark outlines of buildings loomed through the blurry sheet of streaking ice like the charcoal shapes of ships in ocean fog. There seemed to be no sky, only a white void which poured downwards and erased the features of the ground. How could anyone fight in such weather? Scott and Lila would disappear by default, she thought, if only by standing still. The snow swallowed everything which did not move, and even some things that did.

She couldn’t hear any gunfire, and hoped that was a good sign. Ron gripped her hand, a reminder of the present urgency. The battle might still be raging somewhere beyond that vast, frozen curtain she saw through the opened wall, but her part in it was over. She felt a sudden empathy with Harry. It was wrong, to leave friends in a fight yet to be finished. But it was what needed to be done, and she understood the importance of her escape. Scott and Lila did, too; it was why they were still out there, somewhere.

Their struggle would have meaning in the victory it ensured. Hermione gripped Ron’s hand more firmly, and vanished from the pub.


	38. Wealth of Nations Part III

**38**

**Wealth of Nations**

**Part III**

\---

 _“Twenty-five billion arca worth of_  
 _armament, four divisions of veteran_  
 _infantry and enough ammunition to_  
 _shoot down a moon, and it means_  
 _fuck all in this snow.”_  


_—_ Praefectus Minor Phylla Galbarden, Operation Benton Shelf  
Quoted in _Great White North: The Benton Polar Dispute and the  
Blizzard that Changed History_

\---

The gun kicked hard against her shoulder as it spat death with a wisp of smoke and heat. The barrel steamed in the cold, flakes melting as they fluttered against it. Her fire appeared excessive and random, but in reality, she was very carefully placing a long line of bullets over the heads of the crowd below and into the solid stone of the structures behind them. Lest they begin to think she wasn’t serious, though, she ripped a burst into an overturned cart at her end of the barricade, strewing chips into the snow.

Lila had only been standing at the top of the stairs and firing for a handful of seconds, but she was already pushing her luck. Her opponents outnumbered her greatly and it was only a matter of moments before they wouldn’t have to aim around a crowd of panicked hostages. Already, they were sporadically returning fire. None of the spells were anywhere close to being on target, but that was soon to change. She glanced to her left just long enough to see Scott strafe in a sideways crouch across his stair as he fired rapidly, and then he jumped off the side.

Lila dropped her LMG to her hip and waved a wild burst across the front of the enemy line, kicking up snow and shattered cobblestone as she ran for the edge of the stairs. A Severing Charm whipped past her head. Scott had quickly cut around the street corner on his side of the Alley — having lost sight of him, the Death Eaters from his end were firing upon her.

Time to trade suppression for speed. She hopped sideways off the stairs with her gun still held tightly at her hip. She held down the trigger as she jumped, hitting nothing but the street and snow. The enemy closest to her still flinched instinctively from the shots, dropping back into cover. She hit the icy ground, spun around and ran.

Unfortunately, that was the moment probability swung against her. A stray spell exploded on the ground directly next to her right foot. White hot pain suffused her leg; she fell and rolled with her momentum. Two-thirds of the way across the open space she stopped just long enough to fire again, sending Death Eaters dodging back into the safety of the steps and barricade.

She pushed hard with her left arm and leveraged herself back to her feet. Close enough to safety to not have to worry about limping, she launched herself forward with her uninjured side towards the cover of the alley. She gritted her teeth against the intense pain of impact when her damaged foot took her weight, and then swung around so she was resting on her other foot again.

Having reached the corner of the nearest alleyway, she rolled her back across the wall and set her shoulder against the corner of the alcove. The first enemy to emerge around the edge of the barricade was immediately shredded; robes spiking out at his back as the shots tore through. The person behind them ducked back behind the cart. Lila fired on it, unable to see if the target had been struck through the wood.

She had bought herself a second or two to assess her injury. The tip of her right boot was marred with a hole which ran partially down the outer side of her foot. Wisps of smoke curled out of it, fluttering away with the wind. She couldn’t see exactly what the damage was, but she didn’t have to. Discovering the shunt point wasn’t a problem, either: it hurt like hell. She pushed with the shape until the pressure was almost unbearable and then released, silencing a howl by biting the arm of her coat. Teeth aching, she let out a shuddering breath and then returned her attention to her approaching foes.

She sprinted farther into the alley just as a line of Death Eaters were beginning to peek up over the top of the stairs, using their heightened angle as cover. A Blasting Curse dug a pit in the wall next to her — she dodged left when the alley emptied out into a small square yard between houses. She took cover at the corner again and fired back down the alleyway. The snow had thickened to the point she could only just see where she had come from; in infrared, however, her enemies burned brightly against the dark drifts. She aimed left and caught a Death Eater running across the gap. They collapsed, striking the ground hard as their hot blood hit the marble behind them in a phosphorescent spatter.

Decision time. The person she’d just shot would discourage any others from trying to cross the opening and flank right, but they could already be flanking left without her knowledge. They were likely able to cut through the buildings, as well, which meant her position would only be good for another minute, if that. Her objective wasn’t to hold, of course, but she still had to know which way to escape. Even with the heavy falling snow, her tracks would be visible for a time. Which meant she either had to go where there were already tracks, disguising her movements, or be considerably faster than her pursuers. The shortest distance between two points was a straight line, so—

She leaned back around the corner and bombarded the alley, snow jetting off the brick at the points of impact like frozen whale plumes. She fired until her weapon’s barrel took on the patchy, whitened pallor of extreme heat. As the last spent link and shell tumbled into the snow, she sprinted straight to the tall wrought iron fence behind her and clambered over it. Sinking into a drift, she stomped her way free and then, instead of running around the side of the narrow yard of the house, she went straight up the side of the building, catching the edge of the roof and pulling herself up.

Her new vantage point didn’t reveal much of anything, given the extremely poor visibility. Even infrared range was severely hampered by such heavy snowfall. She kept moving, knowing she was headed in the right direction. If she managed to avoid any contact she wouldn’t have to fire, making her exact location much harder to track. The enemy chasing her might be unaware of her elevated position.

Reaching the end of the roof, the next building was too far to make a jump. She launched herself out as far as she was able, hoping the gap in her tracks might confuse, and then hauled herself up a drain pipe.

The snow stuck to her coat and sometimes blew into her eyes, making her blink. The next house had a high peaked roof. She took hold of the chimney and then had nowhere to go but down. The tiny street below seemed devoid of any tracks. If the Death Eaters were still close behind her, she couldn’t tell. She jumped down and scurried across the open space. The gap between the next set of houses was so small that she had to force herself through, duffel bags scraping loudly against the brick. She didn’t stop to see if anyone had heard. Diagon Alley was long, but narrow, and she was crossing its width. Not much farther, now.

The snow crunched beneath her as she ran through a small fenced-in grove of apple trees. She stopped, one hand on an icy trunk, certain she had heard something. Muffled gunfire popped over the wind, echoing through the narrow streets. Scott was still fighting — and with urgency, from the amount of shots he was loosing.

For a moment, Lila debated breaking set and going to help him. She knew the general direction he was in. But the plan was clear, as were the stakes. She didn’t know if he needed help, and, even if he did, there was no guarantee hers would be enough. He was her brother. She never forgot that. But they also had a job to do, and had agreed upon the way to do it. She knew better than to jeopardise her own exfiltration to go haring off into the enemy, even if her heart disagreed.

Ahead loomed the wall that separated the wizarding world from the Muggle. It was roughly thirty feet tall and was constructed of ancient, tightly set stone. The snow was piling against it, unmarred by footsteps. Either she had totally lost her pursuers in the storm, or they were forming a perimeter instead of trying to cut her off. Perhaps they considered the wall impassable. Not an unfounded assumption, considering its height and the old magic with which it was imbued.

The shots in the distance had ceased. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, though she was leaning more towards thinking it was good. She doubted Scott would have fallen without firing even more than he already had. Still, she again felt the urge to intervene and, again, ruthlessly quashed it. Scott would have been furious with her if she’d done anything else. And she would have felt the same, if their positions were reversed.

She hopped off her rooftop perch and landed in the drift at the base of the wall. Backing up to the street, she gained a running start. She jumped and managed to get about halfway up with a mixture of sheer momentum and strength, but the stone was too slick and cold to push herself up further. She fell back down and looked to the street, making sure it was still clear. It seemed the enemy’s confidence in the barrier wasn’t misplaced. She spotted a weakness, however: a house up the road had a narrow tree in front of it, on the far side of the walk. It wasn’t an especially tall tree, but it was closer to the wall than any of the roofs.

She ran back through the snow and surmounted the house. From there she lined herself up with the tree. If she didn’t make it, she’d probably have to abandon some of her burden. Even with Harry’s spells lightening the load, the bags were still unbalancing, and she was reluctant to discard any ammunition.

“Come on,” she said tersely, the words swallowed by the wind.

She ran forward and leapt lightly off the roof, aiming for a thick horizontal branch. The moment her foot touched it, she leaned forward and pushed off as hard as she could, afraid she might slip. She flew towards the wall, lower than she’d hoped. She raised her arms as high as she could and turned her head against the forthcoming impact.

She met the wall with a pained grunt, refusing to flinch and keeping her fingers extended. They caught the icy lip of the wall as she slid downward; she dug her fingertips into the rock as her full weight came to rest on them, grit and snow sliding with unpleasant coldness beneath her nails. Yanking herself up, she put an elbow over the edge and stabilised, rolling onto the top.

Heart pounding with adrenaline, she lay there for a moment, letting the snow begin to cover her. What she could see on the other side of the wall was bewildering. Diagon Alley was larger within than it was without — the result was a refracted view that changed depending on where she looked, a collision of relative reference frames and points in space that corresponded to more than one continuation. It was like a blurry, monochromatic kaleidoscope.

The magical wards were very similar to the Muggle-Repelling Charm, mixed with a variety of much more complicated magic that she had no familiarity with. But the solid protections were close enough to those surrounding The Burrow that she could make a hole large enough to slide through, though she had no way of knowing which intersecting point in London she would be falling into.

She plunged, realising with consternation that the wall was significantly taller on the Muggle side than it had been in the Alley. She smacked into the ground, knees buckling with the force of it. It seemed, in her haste to disrupt the wards enough to pass, she had also broken Harry’s charms to lighten the bags. Their unexpected weight had nearly made her break a bone or two.

She had arrived in yet another snowy alleyway, though this one had some distinctively Muggle flourishes with its wall-mounted conduit, red metal railings and fluorescent fixture over a nearby steel door. Sparse traffic could be heard around a nearby corner.

In the light of the fixture, she examined her foot. Her bare toes could be seen through the punctured leather, bright pink in the cold. She dug through the side pockets of a duffel bag and extracted a roll of duct tape. A few layers of it would serve as a quick fix; the tape would draw less attention than her snow-scoured toes.

She started forward, stiff hands fumbling with her weapon strap. She unhooked her M249 and raised the lid of a nearby skip, dropping the weapon inside where it sank into an array of cardboard; she shuffled the waste a bit to conceal the gun and then dropped the lid back in place. She tucked her balaclava into one of her pockets, the sudden cold sharp against her moist skin. Zipping up her coat to conceal her SMG, she pulled up her hood and walked around the corner and out into the street.

Even in the midst of the blizzard there were still cars forging their way through the slushy London streets, following the salted trails of the snowploughs with their headlights brightly catching on the tumbling flakes. They rumbled slowly forward with grey-caked tyres and flashing wipers shedding snow from their windscreens. Peering through the nearly impenetrable combination of streaking snow and glaring lights, Lila spotted a taxi and flagged it down. The driver only pulled slightly to her direction, unable to get any closer to the kerb with the street narrowed by shunted piles of snow. She slogged through the drift, ankles already soaked as it was, and slid into the back seat. The car’s shocks sank noticeably lower with the weight of her burden.

“Highbury and Islington, please,” she requested once she had shut the door against the wind.

“It will be slow tonight,” the driver warned as he tried to turn back into the lethargic line of traffic.

“That’s all right,” she told him, gazing through her window. “Just so long as we get there.”

Outside, the lights glowed softly through layers of feathery snowfall, blotted out beyond a certain distance. The mushy road hissed and squelched beneath the tyres as a handful of Londoners who were either brave enough or obligated enough to be outside bent against the wind with heads covered and gloves jammed deep into pockets. It was unreal to think of just how close they all walked to a different world entirely, tucked away behind a wall they couldn’t even perceive. Behind that wall, she was still being hunted with magic. There was no magic outside the car, from where she sat — just another city sinking beneath another snowstorm.

Lila hoped that Scott had left magic behind, as well.

***---~**~---***

Scott knew he might be in trouble. The question remained as to whether he could beat the clock that was now ticking, counting down the unknown number of seconds until his situation was inescapable.

The initial moments of the exfiltration had gone more or less according to plan. A combination of frightened hostages and sudden assault had left the Death Eaters at the front of the steps huddled behind whatever cover they could find. Their return fire had been ineffective, and Scott and Lila had jumped off the steps and were moving before the response consolidated.

But Scott had only made it about a street before it became apparent he hadn’t bought as much time as he’d thought. His plan had been to use the weather and his innate speed to outpace the enemy, much as he eventually had at the Hollow. But the Death Eaters had already placed themselves ahead of him, either by design or chance. He’d turned the corner and ran straight into five Snatchers arranging themselves in a loose search pattern. They’d been caught off guard, and he had reached the cover of a nearby stoop by the time they’d begun casting.

It was exactly the sort of position he needed to avoid. He emptied his magazine over the top of the step, the rapid barrage forcing the Snatchers to take cover. He scrambled up the front of the building and sprinted towards the back, spells kicking up roof tiles on the other side of the gently sloped peak. He hit the ground and kept moving, ducking into the next street. A Stunner cracked the window next to his head — three more dark figures emerged from the snow, with even more farther out to the left. He drew his sidearm and dropped the closest target, scattering the others.

He ran, seeking a gap in the closing net. He didn’t want to try punching through if he could avoid it. He could easily become bogged down long enough for his opponents to be reinforced. The storm made him difficult to track, but there were a lot more of them than there was of him. They’d stumbled upon him twice already, despite his speed.

He discarded a STANAG magazine into the snow, inserting a new one as he poked his head around the next small intersection. At least seven Snatchers were converging on it from three different angles. He’d run straight into their main force, from the look of it, sprinting his way through their perimeter and into the bulk of the unit when he’d gone over that house. Shit.

Where was the edge? He doubled back, moving away from the wall that marked the boundary of the Alley. He wasn’t going to fight if it was still possible to run. Ahead of him lay a small square, a tight intersection of two minor streets. He paused at the corner, listening. He heard nothing but the wind and saw nothing but snow that looked almost black in infrared. The scene was still, silent. His gut told him it was a trap. He didn’t know why, but every instinct screamed that the innocuous space was in someone’s sights. Deciding to trust the feeling, he turned back around again.

Spells flew down the alleyway as at least three enemies appeared at the other end. He must have been seen, and they’d followed him. He snuffed out two attacks that he didn’t have the time to identify and returned fire, shots biting at the walls and shattering old brick. A bright spark flashed as a round disintegrated against a Shield Charm. The volume of spells barely decreased. A nearby bin exploded, showering the corridor with steaming garbage. They were trying to force him backwards into the intersection. They were squeezing him out of the alley and into the open where, presumably, someone was waiting.

Refusing to take the path they intended, Scott scrambled straight up the side of the building and smashed through a first-storey window, using his thick coat to protect his face from the shards. Between his speed and the small size of the opening, he wasn’t able to land on his feet. He hit the floor with a crunch and rolled, coming to a stop against a cabinet with a hollow bang.

He’d crashed his way into someone’s bathroom, redecorating their tile floor with shattered glass and fragments of wooden frame. He surged up and out, emerging into a bedroom. He thought someone was cowering behind the bed but didn’t stop to look. The bedroom door led into a hallway with a set of stairs behind a short railing at the end. Next to the stairwell was another window, this one overlooking the street where he had originally come from. Scott slammed his elbow through the flimsy bronze lock and leaned out. One of the Snatchers had stayed behind at the mouth of the alley when his fellows had gone forward. Two quick shots to the chest dropped the man into the snow. Scott climbed onto the sill and launched himself out into the cold. He hit the street running, muffled shouts ringing out behind him as the Snatchers flocked to the sound of his weapon. A Cutting Charm flew from the window and hit a lamppost with a brilliant showering of sparks. He dodged right and ran up the street, counting on the snow to mask him from distant fire.

Ahead was a grove of trees, planted between the brick bulwarks of two buildings, a narrow park. Scott ducked into it, preferring the cover of the trunks to the open street. It proved to be a mistake: spells came flying from beyond the fence ahead. Three Snatchers had taken position behind the solid lower half of the fence, spread out next to the exit. Scott took cover behind the closest tree as a Severing Charm cut a deep groove in the bark. The tree shook with the impact of several minor Blasting Curses.

The problem with fighting wizards as opposed to Muggle opponents was that wizards never needed to reload. That momentary gap in readiness had been exploited since firearm-based combat had been in its infancy, and was why those who were well trained always staggered their reloads. But the other side of that magical advantage was that most spells were spoken, and consisted of multiple syllables. Wands were also far more difficult to aim. They lacked recoil, but also lacked any means of bracing and even basic sights. Beyond the very short range, most wizards zeroed in their targets by watching where their previous spells had landed. Scott’s sights were already zeroed, and he knew his ranges. In terms of the match up of pure weaponry, his disadvantages were versatility and staying power. His advantages were unmatchable speed and precision.

Scott ducked out of cover and fired in short, tight single-fire bursts at the fence as he moved to the next tree. He waited as more spells flew around him, and then repeated the action. The Snatchers ducked as he moved and fired, bullets clanging through the wrought iron and shattering brick and cobblestone. About four trees forward, he stopped to reload. The Snatchers seemed to have lost track of which tree he was behind; several other trees received their share of spell damage.

Scott waited. The uncertain lull in their fire came again, and he seized the opportunity. He leaned out and squeezed the trigger, surprising the Snatcher on the far right and striking the man twice in the torso. His partner shouted in dismay and then ran — Scott caught a fleeting glimpse of his retreating back, but didn’t try to hit him. Instead, he fired at a steady pace into the portion of cover where the last Snatcher was cowering, advancing with quick, careful steps until he reached the fence.

The remaining Snatcher was huddled into a tight ball in the snow, covered in chips of brick. Scott fired twice into his head.

Scott turned and ran out into the next narrow exit, keeping an eye out for the man who had retreated. A Snatcher popped out of an alcove just ahead, wand at the ready. Scott flipped his M4 up and fired from the hip, not needing precision at such close range, but the shots hit the Shield Charm the man was maintaining. When a second Snatcher appeared behind the first and prepared to fire, Scott veered left and shouldered through a door, splintering the latch.

The house was cold and dark, apparently empty. He rushed through the kitchen and down a short set of stairs that led to an enclosed back porch. Just as he hit the floor, the back door opened and two more Snatchers pushed their way inside. Unfortunately for them, they were within arm’s reach. Scott let go of his M4, letting it bounce on its straps, and barrelled forward into the first man. He caught the Snatcher by the wrist and ducked under his arm, spinning around until the full weight of both their bodies was put on the elbow and shoulder. Bone broke and the shoulder socket dislocated with an audible pop. Scott let go and used his side to knock the second man into the door frame hard enough that the back of the man’s head slapped against the wood with a hollow crack. Hands feebly pushed against Scott’s chest, searching for solid purchase; Scott ignored them and slammed his elbow against the man’s forehead, once, twice, and then kicked his kneecap in backwards against the wood.

Scott left them both on the floor and kept running, not even bothering to make the first Snatcher stop screaming. His location was presently obvious enough. He didn’t know if the other Snatchers would stop to aid their maimed comrades, but he hoped so. He hopped the fence in the backyard and cut sideways around the next house. He didn’t turn through the street ahead, keeping a straight path across before veering into an alleyway to his right. He took another right after counting to twenty, ending up back on the same street where he had been confronted, but well past the Snatcher’s previous positions.

The wind tugged hard at his coat, catching against his body and the bags he carried, making him feel as if he were running up an incline. If it was hard for him, though, it would be several times harder for the Death Eaters. With that idea in mind, he turned directly into the gale and kept that heading, legs churning through the snow as he used his physical advantage to force his way into the brunt of the storm. He ran until he reached the end of the street where it branched off. To the side, there was a gap between two shops.

He looked back. The snow blew past in long, sharp streaks, disappearing into the frozen tumult, a grey haze that marked the edge of visibility. If he stood perfectly still, it was almost as if he was moving, the street and the whirling flakes shooting past him down a tunnel of ice. In the infrared spectrum, he could see the dim white splotches of people in the distance, fading in and out of view as the snow obscured and their clothing shifted.

He went through the gap between the shops, emerging in yet another side street he didn’t know the name of. He’d studied the map of the Alley, same as everyone else, but between his speed and the snow, he’d long since lost track of any landmarks. Travelling in a straight line in any given direction would, eventually, take him to the wall. He didn’t want to go the same way as Lila, however, nor did he want to drag any Death Eaters to where his Primes might still be making their exit, assuming they weren’t already gone. They should have been.

The Death Eaters were between him and the wall. His encounters had painted a rough picture of a half-circle that was changing with every passing moment, their line forming based on his movements. He might be able to slip through somewhere and reach his intended section of wall, or he might run right back into the enemy. Heading in a different direction could work, but the fact was, the longer he spent running randomly through the snow, the more time his enemies had to coordinate and the more of them there would be. He had little doubt that additional Death Eaters and Snatchers had arrived in the Alley, and there would be others to come.

More people meant more tracks though, and that gave him an idea. He wound his way back to the intersection where he had sensed the trap. Coming in on a different approach, he could see the rooftops and windows which had been the likely vectors for attack. The area appeared deserted, the Death Eaters having followed him through the building and out into the next street over. They were likely still somewhere further north, trying to find his trail in the blizzard. But it would lead them to where they had started: there were tracks all over the intersection, criss-crossing the open street and diverging into the alleys like lumpy, potholed paths. The snow was quickly filling them, erasing the finer details and leaving only the deepest holes, and even those would vanish soon enough.

Scott darted forward at full speed, ready to divert if he drew any fire. No spells were forthcoming, however, so he hid himself in the faint shadow of a doorway while he watched for any sign of response. There was no sound or movement save the constant howl of the wind and snow.

He couldn’t go for the Western wall again, not without considerable risk. And he wasn’t dumb enough to try for the Pub exit, not without completely changing his appearance. He could do so easily enough by cancelling his Polyjuice, but would then be forced to ditch his money and equipment. He also suspected that a single man, especially one without appropriate winter gear, would be stopped and questioned regardless of description. Maybe he could talk his way out of it, but he really didn’t want to risk being detained. The gear and money he could come back for, if he hid it well enough. Which raised the question, why not hide _himself_ well enough?

They thought he was running, and they were right. He’d been running in unexpected ways because he was too outnumbered to fight for long. They no doubt expected him to _keep_ running, until he was exhausted or they caught him, whichever came first. Yet here he was, standing in snow already compacted by other runners. Who could say who ran where?

Time was only on the side of the enemy so long as the current pace was kept and the net continued to close. In the advent of relative safety, time became Scott’s ally once more. The shape would not shake forever.

He was at the intersection of Wright and Fellowship, he was fairly certain, difficult though it was to tell through the nearly impenetrable snow billowing down from the uniform white haze above. If he was correct, there was an old church roughly one street to the west. It wasn’t much compared to its larger fellow roughly a mile and a half away on Ludgate Hill, but it would be taller than the surrounding buildings. Tall enough, Scott judged, that its steeple could not be seen from the snow-shrouded street.

He found the best path and hurried through yet another alleyway, retracing the steps of an enemy still chasing him. The blizzard ensured that his addition to the trail would cease being obviously newer within a matter of minutes, and all prints would be erased entirely before long. When he reached the correct street, he jumped upwards and pulled himself onto the rooftops. He could see the grey stone face of the church, the steps to its doors completely buried as the drift building against the front threatened to reach the first tier of windows. Breaking into an awkward, hampered run, he leapt from the closest corner and caught the side of the sloped roof where it met the rise of the steeple tower.

The snow was blowing on the wrong angle to stick to the old slate shingles, piling on the opposite slope and leaving the side Scott clung to a grainy surface of wavering white ripples, looking not unlike a shifting dune as snow blew harshly across it. Carefully, he inched upwards until he could fit his stiff fingers into the pitted mortar between the large stone blocks that made up the tower. He looked skywards; the tip of the steeple was intermittently visible for fractions of a second. It widened slightly near the top, possibly to accommodate a bell. He was more interested in the ledge he could see before the steeple’s opened archways to the interior.

Climbing was a slow and delicate process. He’d chosen his facing wisely, and the wind pressed him into the cold stone, only occasionally threatening to rip him away from it when odd gusts hit. At last, his hands closed on the rounded boundary of the stone ledge. With an inaudible grunt, he rolled up onto it. Lying on his back with the snow pelting his eyes, he glanced to his left, back down at the church roof. There wasn’t much to see. The sun was growing dimmer, and visibility was dropping ever further. He could just make out the sloped peak of the church’s roof, and the dark outline of the closest buildings. The streets might as well have not existed, blank spaces on the white parchment that the Alley was becoming.

The shutters that led to what he assumed was a belfry were closed against the wind, but he had no interest in trying to get in. He sat up and then flopped onto his stomach and crawled his way around to the windward side of the steeple. There, the snow was deeply piled all the way up to the shutter, caking the tower’s side. It was a bit of a struggle, but he managed to get the duffel bags unstrapped from his prone position and then proceeded to bury them on top of each other in the far side of the drift. Then he crawled backwards, letting his legs hang precariously off the ledge, and began to dig.

Soon he was cocooned in the drift, patting the walls of his makeshift tunnel flat to give himself some room to breathe. He was able to make just enough space to get comfortable on his back, staring up into total darkness. He could hear the wind, muffled and deep, as it deposited more snow on top of him. He couldn’t really move, considering how close he was to falling, and he couldn’t see, either, but he felt pretty good about his chances of not being found.

Somewhere far below him in the rapidly darkening streets, Death Eaters and Snatchers searched futilely for tracks that were already gone. Scott took a deep breath, smelling the crisp and watery odour that was unique to snow, hearing the soft, grating crunch as he shifted his shoulders. He grinned in the blackness, thinking of how he’d somehow ended up jammed in yet another tunnel as night was falling. At least this one was comfortable, if precarious.

Scott closed his eyes and listened to the storm inexorably blotting out every trace of him.

***---~**~---*** 

As the streets of Diagon Alley took on the frantic ambience of a warzone, Harry ran.

He was right on the heels of the terrified hostages as they fled the bank, their trampled path easing his passage and concealing his own footprints. He’d been worried that the blizzard would make him obvious, a sort of frosty ghost where the flakes adhered to the Cloak and produced a spectral outline. But snow didn’t seem to stick to the Cloak at all, not even at his ankles. As long as he stayed where the snow had already been trod upon, he would remain unseen.

Lila’s gunfire roared behind him, the sound beating at his back as if it were pushing him forward. He didn’t need the added urgency. He cut left around the barricade, narrowly avoiding a Death Eater there. He had to slow as several hostages stumbled past the door he intended to enter; as soon as they were gone, he opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through and slid inside.

The interior was dark and cold, the polished wooden surfaces slightly dusty. It was a hotel that Harry had seen open and lit in previous years, but it now looked to have been closed since at least the start of winter, and maybe even before. Perhaps the owners were Muggle-born, or otherwise considered undesirable. Whatever the case, the empty building had served as a convenient vantage point. Now, with the piercing report of gunfire rattling through the howling snow, it was time to leave, and Harry intended to ensure that Ginny did so safely.

A woman was bustling down the stairs to the lobby, trying to fasten her coat at the same time. It took Harry a second to equate her with a Polyjuiced Ginny. “Gin!” he said, gaining her attention.

She froze, eyes searching the shadows. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Harry,” he told her, lifting the bottom of the Cloak. “Come on, get under.”

She quickly complied, slipping beneath the shroud. “This wasn’t part of the plan,” she said, though she sounded far from disapproving.

“It is now,” Harry said. The staccato percussion of machinegun fire made the windows ring in sympathy, vibrating hollowly in their frames as if to underscore his decision. He spoke quickly into his mirror, “Highground, it’s Ghost. I’ve got Overwatch and we’re leaving together.”

It took a moment for Ron to reply. **“All right, mate. I’m almost to the spot, so no more talking,”** he said breathlessly, words halting as he ran.

“See you soon,” Harry told him, and then closed the clasp on the mirror, guaranteeing it would stay silent.

Ginny did the same with hers. “Suppose we’re on our own,” she said.

More gunfire. The snaps came slowly, more irregular. Harry was fairly certain that was Scott. He tried to look out the window, but it was coated with frost. “Come on, we can follow the tracks.”

The storm nearly knocked Harry over when he stepped outside. He and Ginny clung to each other as the wind tore at the Cloak. He worried that the flapping hem might expose them, but the way they sank into the snow lowered the chance. Still, he crouched a bit more than usual as they slogged their way up the mulched path of prints. Ginny was in the unusual position of having to do the same, being somewhat taller than normal in her assumed form. The crunch of the packed snow beneath them was inaudible over the wind, removing that worry. The way the snow was blowing, they’d practically be invisible even without the Cloak, Harry thought, watching as the violent gusts blew billows of powder into the air (and into his face).

There were few other people on the street, or at least few that could be seen. The handful that were visible were moving uniformly in the same direction, away from the bank and the deadly clamour echoing sporadically from the deeper portions of the Alley. There was far less firing than before, which Harry reckoned could either be a good sign or a very bad one. He was hoping for the former, and didn’t want to believe that Scott or Lila could be captured without making even more noise.

Between the Cloak and the blizzard, progress was slow, but it wasn’t too long before Harry could just make out the dim light of the Leaky Cauldron ahead. It was one of the rare buildings still lit, a beacon amidst rows of structures which stood dark and silent. Occasionally a light flickered as someone moved in front of it. He watched apprehensively, trying to see if it were possible to sneak through the opening without running into the Death Eaters and Snatchers who were coming and going.

As they drew closer, he was relieved to see that there wasn’t much traffic at all — only one Death Eater, huddled miserably beneath their hood, stood at the entrance to the Alley keeping watch. There could be others looking out the windows, but there wasn’t much to see. The weather was only growing worse. The snow might not have stuck to the Cloak but the wind cut right through it, and Harry was intensely grateful for his heavy winter wear, cumbersome though it was.

Slowly, they crept up the flattened path to the open wall. Harry kept his wand pointed at the sentry, just in case the Death Eater should somehow hear them over the blizzard. The sudden cessation of the wind when they crossed into the shelter of the courtyard walls was abrupt and almost startling, like stepping into a vacuum. Harry could actually hear again.

Ginny was gripping his hand, ready to Disapparate. Harry tensed himself to go; then, voices from inside the pub caught his attention. Was it the Death Eaters? He felt a jolt of excitement, wondering what he might learn. Ginny tugged insistently at his arm. He met her eyes, and tilted his head towards the sounds. Her eyes widened, then narrowed intently, and she nodded.

The door to the pub was closed. The Death Eater watching the street had his back to them, and Harry carefully pushed lightly at the door until it swung open just enough for him to peer inside. There was no one immediately close to it, and it sounded like the voices were gathered at the tables in front of the bar. Trusting in his invisibility, Harry quickly stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He stood stock still for a moment after, but there came no outcry.

“—growing impatient,” a voice was saying. “The Dark Lord asked for more frequent reports.”

Harry stiffened. He knew that voice. That was Lucius Malfoy.

“So here you are to get one. Everyone is happy, now,” another voice said, this one unfamiliar. It was deep and gravelly, heavily accented with an Eastern European tone that Harry wasn’t knowledgeable enough to place.

“The Dark Lord is _not_ happy. He wants to know why the terrorists haven’t been found.”

“Does the Dark Lord have a window? Tell him to look outside,” the accented voice grumbled.

“One does not speak to him in that manner,” Lucius hissed.

“No. You would have to grow balls,” the other man sighed.

Harry edged forward, Ginny pressed tightly to his back to peer over his shoulder. He was able to look around the corner. There, Lucius Malfoy was confronting a handful of other Death Eaters gathered around a table. The one he seemed to be talking to was a heavyset, balding man with close-cropped hair and thick, dark stubble shot through with grey.

Lucius was clearly enraged, face white with anger. “We’ll see if you still have yours after I inform him of your progress,” he said softly, and then spun on his heel and Disapparated.

A tall Death Eater leaning nonchalantly against the bar scratched at his chin. “You sure you want to talk to Malfoy like that?” he asked. He had an Australian accent.

The unshaven man shrugged distractedly. “He’s just a messenger. Skinny blond owl.”

“He’ll make you look bad when he talks to the boss, though.”

“Dark Lord expects it. It’s what he wants.” The unshaven man placed his hands flat on the table. Harry thought it was a map he was inspecting. “Second time,” he grunted.

“What?”

“The weather. Second time this man uses it against me. He’s going to escape, you know.”

“Blokes from the bank said there was two of them. Didn’t see any features.”

“It’s him,” the unshaven man said with finality. “First in the rain, now in the snow.”

“Would be the same blighter from the Hollow, then. So it’s really three times.”

The unshaven man’s hands fisted on the table. “Yes.”

The man at the bar crossed his arms. “You’ll get back in good if you can suss out who he is.”

The unshaven man shrugged tiredly, turning away from the map. “Ex-military. Muggle-trained. Caucasian male, adult, blond or light brown hair. Preference for NATO weapons. Probably a mercenary.” The unshaven man paused. “No. Not mercenary. Terrorist. Freedom fighter. Has a cause.”

“Thought you said he was a merc before?”

“Before he came to the bank. Even small wars are expensive. Resistance needs money, so he gets it. Can’t afford men like him.”

“Could be working for cheap.”

The unshaven man made a grotesque noise that might have been a laugh. “He’s _good._ Not cheap. No. He wants this. He wants to fight us.”

“Well.” The taller man shifted uneasily. “We’ve gotta have something more than that, or—”

“He’s working with Potter.”

Harry flinched slightly, even as Ginny’s grip on him tightened to a nearly painful degree.

The taller man shook his head. “Dark Lord thinks Potter is hiding.”

“He’s working with Potter,” the unshaven man said more insistently.

“How can you be sure?”

“The girl. The Hollow. But mostly, the girl.” The unshaven man turned back to the map. “Timous girl. Why? Why her? Because of Potter.”

“Snape said it was the Order, they’ll try to save anyone.”

The unshaven man’s face twisted disdainfully. “The Dark Lord believes him, of course.”

“He’s lying?”

“He’s wrong. It was Potter, and he brought this man, this same man.”

Silence fell for a moment. “…All right, but even if that’s true,” the taller man said slowly, “we still don’t know what exactly happened at the Hollow or who all was there.”

“Doesn’t matter. He was there.”

“You don’t care why?”

“When I get him, I’ll ask.”

“Second ago, you said he was going to escape.”

“This time.”

The tall man raised his hands exasperatedly. “Where the bloody hell is he going to go? We’ve got the walls covered, like he can even get over, and all the Floo is down, like you asked for. You think he’s coming here?”

“No. He’s not stupid.”

“He tried to rob Gringotts, I’d say he bloody well is.”

The unshaven man stared down at the map. “He would not have come here if he didn’t have a way out.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

The tall man blew out a frustrated breath. “Then who’s his partner?”

“I don’t know.”

The tall man slumped back against the bar, and went quiet.

Harry was tempted to stay and hear even more, but as the silence stretched on between the men his curiosity began to be taken over by his sense of urgency. Ginny must have been feeling the same way, as she squeezed his hand in indication she was ready to Disapparate. Harry backed away from the corner and returned to the door. Its position in a separated room would hopefully keep the men from hearing it open again without a conversation to cover the sound. He didn’t want to Disapparate where it would be obvious. The unshaven man had already divined a bit more than was comfortable, given the few clues he had — no need to hand him another.

Back out in the cold, there were a few more Death Eaters clustered near the opened wall. Harry and Ginny moved to the edge, where the wind caught and cried loudly against the stone. There, hands meeting as the snow pelted the buried city, they squeezed into nothingness, and disappeared.


	39. Wind Down

**39**

**Wind Down**

\---

_“An army without rest is a weapon without ammo.”_

_—_ Kharadjai Republic Armed Forces unattributed aphorism.

\---

The snow outside was beautiful. There was a street lamp just at the edge of the car park, standing sentry outside the chainlink fence that marked the boundary of safety. Its pool of light caught every flake, painting the darkness in long white streaks. It seemed like the only light in the world now that the sun had disappeared below the clouded horizon. The closest warehouses weren't lit, and the lights of the city were cloaked behind the blizzard's fury. Kylie's breath frosted the window as she watched, feeling the cold of the glass pane radiate against her lips.

She didn't know exactly what the others were doing somewhere out there in the night, but she had a good idea. They'd never tried to hide the mission board from her and she'd learned that she wouldn't be made to leave if she hovered nearby whilst they discussed what they intended. She usually tried not to think about the reality of _why_ everyone was hiding in Grimmauld Place because then that led to thoughts of how easily she could lose everything. That was when her chest went so tight she felt like she would never breathe again and her head filled with every awful thought it could hold.

It was easier to pretend that she'd been sent to see Trevor just because she missed him. Sometimes it was harder to pretend than others, and she'd never been all that good at it. Trevor had said they'd build a snow fort in the morning. That was something better to think about.

She jumped slightly as Trevor unexpectedly appeared beside her, peering intently out the window. “Did you see something?” he said.

“Just the snow,” she told him.

“That's a _lot_ ,” he said, impressed. “Our fort will be bloody huge!”

Trevor liked to swear when his mum wasn't around. Kylie didn't think he was especially good at it — at least not compared to Scott, when he forgot Kylie was around (which was more often than he realised). Kylie didn't really care if people swore around her, but she'd never expressed that as she suspected Sophie wouldn't like it. Sophie appeared to think that Kylie shouldn't know those words (she did, though).

Kylie simply nodded in encouragement. She didn't know what was involved in making a snow fort, but it sounded rewarding.

Trevor turned from the window. Kylie liked the way he looked in the low light, with his brown hair tousled. His face was just beginning to lose some of its youthful softness, jawline sharpening a bit since she'd first met him. She didn't really know how to tell him she liked how he looked, though, so she kept it to herself. She wondered if he'd noticed that her hair wasn't tangled any more, since Sophie had given her a brush. Sophie seemed to believe that girls shouldn't have messy hair (Sophie didn't seem to believe that anything should be messy).

“Mum says it's time for bed,” he told her a bit grumpily. Trevor was never pleased to be told to go to bed.

It was only Kylie's second night at the safehouse and she wasn't quite sure what her routine was yet, but she dutifully made her way to where her bed was. She didn't want to anger Trevor's mum. The woman already seemed a bit suspicious of Kylie — did she know about Kylie's parents? Or was Kylie just imagining it? Perhaps everyone knew that Kylie's parents were… well, bad. Dark. She had always known, even if she'd thought that was how things were supposed to be. Going to Hogwarts had made her question a great deal, including that assumption.

Whatever the reason, Kylie had been given a small room that was adjacent to Ms Bufon's, separating her from Trevor. She'd hoped to have a room next to his, so if she was scared or had a nightmare she could go to his door and sit inside, like she did with Scott or Sophie sometimes. But with Ms Bufon between them, she was afraid she might be heard. There weren't any proper doors for the rooms, not yet. Just hanging sheets. She didn't want Trevor's mother to think Kylie was up to anything inappropriate. Kylie wasn't entirely certain what that would mean, but she thought she had some idea. Whatever Harry and Ginny were doing, and Scott and Sophie wanted to do.

Those indistinct things weren't the sorts of things she wanted to do with Trevor, even if she liked how he looked. It was just that if she woke up in the middle of the night with her heart racing and the darkened room pressing in on her like she was inside a closing mouth, she wanted to know that he was okay because that would make her feel okay, too, or at least better.

She didn't think she could explain that to Trevor's mother. It didn't make sense to Kylie herself, sometimes.

She brushed her teeth in the large privy down the hall with its long, flickering lights in the ceiling that hummed when switched on and the strange fake stone walls (textured spray paint, Lila had said it was). There wasn't much in her own room save a small table and the bed, though she hadn't brought much with her. The sheets on the bed were a bit scratchy and the heavy blankets always sparked with static when she pulled them, snapping at her fingers. It had taken her awhile to get used to Grimmauld Place, but her large, comfy bed in the master bedroom seemed like home, now, and she found herself missing it. Home was dark and a bit dreary, and occasionally even frightening when things went wrong and everyone ended up on the floor in enchanted sleep. But it was also full of friends and books and lessons and meals to be shared. Sometimes she missed the things she had left at the manor. She never missed the manor itself.

She never missed her parents, either. She thought that might make her a bad person. She was afraid to ask Scott if that were true.

The light on the ceiling turned off when she flipped the switch near the sheet that served as her door, no need for her wand. It seemed more like magic than magic did, though she knew it wasn't. It was fascinating, the safehouse — so different from the other places she had been. The building was fashioned in such a contrasting way. There was an unfinished portion of the interior beyond a door at the end of the hall, the spot which marked where the Order had ceased their hasty renovations. Kylie and Trevor had explored it, poking around the broken tiles and looking up into the odd ceiling with its bare, criss-crossing thin metal beams. Some of them were occupied by porous, speckled rectangles of an age-yellowed material that was sort of like really stale bread. Kylie imagined that every rectangle in the ceiling had once been filled, blocking out the ducts higher up. Below the floor, in the walls and dangling from the ceiling were wires of different colours with tarnished copper ends. They were all for something, she was positive. Each one had a purpose.

Scott would have known, if she could ask him. These were pieces of his world — or something like it. Kylie had a desire she was afraid to admit, at times even to herself. Mother and Father would have been utterly furious if they knew. But Kylie learned the magic she was taught because she was expected to, not because she was all that interested or even very good at it (she didn't think she was). What she really wanted to know was how the brass shells of Scott's bullets were made so perfectly; how his mobile could light up if he pressed the right buttons; how the motor car could push itself up and down the street without so much as a single wave of a wand; how the craft she had once seen up in the sky over London could stay in the air without any brooms or carpets.

The truth was, Kylie wasn't sure she liked magic. Well, no… She did enjoy spells, sometimes. It was more that she didn't like the world that came with the magic. And that was not a truth she felt she could ever express. Even Trevor wouldn't understand.

“Kylie?” Trevor's voice came through the curtain as he whispered her name.

Kylie started to nod in acknowledgement before realising he couldn't see her. “Yes?”

“Good night. And get some sleep, like, lots. We've got loads to do on that fort tomorrow!”

“Okay.”

“Oi, hang on.” There was a bit of rustling, and then Trevor's head poked around the curtain. “Can I come in, are you dressed?”

Kylie was wearing the same knee-length shirt of Scott's that she slept in at Grimmauld (it said, 'I Support the Right to Arm Bears' on the front and had a cute illustration of a bear holding a rifle, and she'd become rather attached to it), but she pulled her covers up to her chin, anyway. “Yes.”

Trevor's dark outline slipped through the opening. “Here, I found this.” He handed her a small metal cylinder attached to a chain made of many small metal beads, features which Kylie mostly established through touch. “See, twist the top.”

Sudden, brilliant light emerged from the top of the cylinder, briefly blinding her. She rotated it in fascination, watching the beam play across the blank white of the walls.

“It's like a Muggle wand or something,” Trevor explained. “There's a whole load of them in a cabinet back in the rubbish room. I thought you could use it if you need to go to the loo, or just need to see. You know, because you get all…” he trailed off abruptly. Trevor wasn't very tactful at the best of times, but she still appreciated his attempt.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She placed her hand over the top of the light and watched as her skin turned red and incandescent.

“Thought you'd be keen,” Trevor said, awkwardly ducking his head. “So, remember to sleep. That fort's gotta be stonking enormous!”

When he left, Kylie turned off the light and tucked it in one fist beneath her blankets, the metal cool against her palm. She imagined she was still at Grimmauld Place, in her own bed, and that if she wanted she could go out into the halls and ask Scott how the light worked. That familiarity, however false, would bring her that much closer to sleep.

Outside, the snow built in the darkness, waiting for her and Trevor to shape it in the morning.

***---~**~---***

For a moment, Harry had no idea where he was. He was on his side, body shaken from impact against a floor, and he couldn't see a thing. It took a second for his rattled brain to catch up with his predicament. He'd just Apparated, apparently having mucked it up a bit, if his prone position was anything to judge by, and his Cloak was tangled about his face.

Helpful hands tugged at the Cloak and helped him to his feet. He blinked and focussed on an unfamiliar face. He recoiled slightly, then remembered the reason for that, too. “Um, Sophie?”

“What?” the middle-aged woman asked in a pitch that didn't fit her. She looked down at herself. “Oh! Yep, enough of that!”

Sophie reached out and touched Harry's hand. He felt his features slide, moulding back into their regular contours. He pulled the Cloak off of himself, relieved to feel it against his messy black hair. Ginny had fallen out of the Cloak when they'd landed roughly in the kitchen, and as Sophie helped her up he watched as she shrunk back into her petite, freckled self.

“Let's stay off the Polyjuice for a while,” she said, running her fingers through her incarnadine locks.

“Absolutely,” Harry said, drinking the sight of her in.

Sophie, looking very young and silly in clothes that were now entirely too large for her, was also rearranging her hair with satisfaction. “Ron and Hermione went up to change, if you want to. Forgot about myself! I'm going to change too, actually, these pants are going to trip me, I just know it.”

“Where's the Horcrux?” Harry wanted to know.

“It's still in the handbag, inside the box. Did you want to kill it now? Because I thought it would be easier to have Scott and Lil here, too, I think it's better to be safe…”

“No, you're right. We should leave it alone until we're ready. I'm not going through that dream bollocks again.” Harry shivered as he suddenly realised how cold he still was. The snow covering his ankles and boots was beginning to melt in the kitchen's warmth, seeping through his socks.

“You are just pneumonia waiting to happen,” Sophie announced. She pointed to the stairs, her hand comically obscured by her floppy, oversized sleeve. “Take a nice warm shower and get into some dry clothes, team doctor's orders.”

Harry dutifully went up the stairs, Ginny close beside him. “She's the team doctor? Since when?” Harry wondered.

Ginny grinned at him mischievously. “Sounds like she just promoted herself.”

“We can do that?”

“From now on, I'm team captain,” Ginny said self-importantly. “I order you to snog me senseless.”

“Seems I have no choice.” Harry turned and pressed her to the wall of the landing; she immediately wrapped her lithe legs around his waist and put her mouth to his. Her lips were cold but her tongue was like a live coal, and the warmth seemed to spread all the way to his toes.

“Good grief, you two! You're supposed to change!” Sophie loudly exclaimed from behind them. Harry and Ginny broke their kiss, startled, though Ginny didn't let go of him.

“We're just warming up,” Ginny said innocently.

Sophie was not impressed by the logic. “You're going to get sick, is what you're doing. Now scoot!”

One steaming hot shower and a change of clothes later, and Harry was feeling almost like himself again. Outside, the snow was howling against the darkened windows of the drawing room. Ginny was curled up in his lap, at least half asleep. He was in a similar state. The old settee felt like the most comfortable thing he'd ever sat on and his eyes ached for sleep. Ron and Hermione looked more or less how he felt. Sophie was the only one who seemed unaffected by the day's outing, though that might have been because she was still anxious. They all were, and that anxiety was the only thing keeping them awake.

“It hasn't been that long,” Hermione was reasoning, “especially not in this weather. And you said there's no way of knowing how far away from the Alley they'd have to go?”

“They'll just have to see,” Sophie said, standing awkwardly by the window with her mobile in hand (she was clearly making a conscious effort to prevent herself from pacing). “It will probably be easiest for them to take standard transport back.”

“Standard… Like a car, you mean?” Hermione said, unfamiliar with Sophie's terminology.

“Yes, like a car,” Sophie said with a hint of embarrassment.

All Harry knew was that the Kharans had better get back to Grimmauld soon or he was going to pass out no matter how worried he was. He'd go rescue them in the morning if he had to. Ginny's breathing had slowed to the point he was pretty sure she wasn't even partially awake any more. Her heat and the gentle puff of her breath against his chest wasn't helping him stay alert, either.

“You should all go to bed,” Sophie told them with the suddenness of a snap decision. “I'll wait and see if they call.”

Ron seemed ready enough to take the suggestion (and Ginny already had), but Hermione was reluctant. “What if they need our help?”

“I'll handle it,” Sophie said confidently.

Hermione wasn't placated. “You'll wake us,” she corrected.

“Which would be handling it!” Sophie pointed out with a bit of exasperation in her pinched smile. “Soooo… go to bed!”

Harry didn't feel up to arguing. For once, he was tired enough to accept that there wasn't anything to be done at the moment. “She's right. All we're doing is waiting, anyway,” he said, finishing his sentence with a yawn that made his jaw pop.

Hermione glanced towards the dark window, where the white tracers of snow whipped past the glass. “I just hope they can make it back in this weather,” she murmured.

“They've had to survive in worse,” Sophie reassured her.

There didn't seem to be much else to say, not until something further occurred, so they all went their separate ways, desperate for even a slight amount of rest. Harry carried Ginny back to their bedroom, groggily shouldering the door aside and setting her on the mattress as gently as he was able. He crawled over the blankets to lie beside her and then intended to close his eyes, just for a moment, before he properly tucked them both in.

His next conscious moment came an indeterminate amount of time later as he awoke to find his feet aching from the cold. There were voices in the hallway, and the sound of his door being briefly opened further. With a groan, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, but whoever had looked into his room had already gone. Regretting his failure to get beneath the blankets, he forced his stiff body up and walked around the bed to pull the covers over Ginny. Then he slowly made his way out into the hall, following the sound of conversation.

Lila was with Sophie in the drawing room, which was good news. “—slow going,” Lila was saying. “Figured I'd stick to the tech-eq since I was fine. It wasn't that long.”

“That's what I thought, maybe he's in a car or something,” Sophie said. “But I've been checking and it's like he's not moving… He's still over there and I really don't feel like he's any closer…”

“Then they didn't get him,” Lila stated with surety.

“Unless they're holding him until the storm—”

“They're wizards, Strauss. If they had him, they'd have ported him to wherever Riddle is.”

“No, you're right. You're right,” Sophie said again, more confidently.

“He's fine. If he's not, I'll…” Lila didn't finish her sentence, halting uncertainly. Harry didn't think he'd ever heard her do that before.

“We'll think of something,” Sophie said.

Harry had initially intended to enter the room and join the two Kharadjai women, but instead he turned around and went back to his room, feeling like he'd just be interrupting a moment between two worried friends. It wasn't as if he had anything to add besides his own helpless concern. Though, honestly, it was sort of a familiar situation, when it came to Scott.

He made it a few steps back down the hall when he heard Sophie gasp. “My phone!”

“Put him on speaker,” Lila said.

There was a soft beep, and then Sophie said, “Hello?”

“Yeah, it's me.” Scott's voice was a bit distorted and strangely muffled, but understandable enough.

“Where are you?” Lila asked at the same time Sophie said, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. I'm in a pile of snow. The two things are related.”

“Oh my gosh, are you still in the Alley?” Sophie said.

“Look, let's not get into who's where, or why—”

“You suck, Scott, I'm already back at Grimmauld,” Lila said loudly over him.

“Hooray, callooh, callay, truly your great struggle in walking away while they all tried to kill me should be commemorated. Maybe they'll pin some more medals to your chest, you got plenty of real estate.”

“Maybe they will. They don't give out awards for Best Snow Fort of Shame.”

“I hindered, I evaded, I nearly got my ass hexed off. What did you even do?”

“I lost part of my foot,” Lila told him, sounding like she was almost bragging.

“That's boring. You're boring, Lil.”

“Yeah, I'm sure your epic tale of how you came to be cowering in your snow hole is much more exciting. How've you been killing time, building a snow-dick to fellate?”

“You caught me; I'm making the snowballs right now.”

“Okay, I'm very glad to hear you're all right,” Sophie said with an edge in her voice, breaking into Scott and Lila's barbs. “When are you coming back?”

“I don't know yet. There's no way they're going to find me, though. Not even if it stops snowing. It is still snowing, right?”

“Yes, and it's not supposed to stop until the afternoon,” Sophie said.

“All right. Things are already calming down, somewhat. I should be able to get out of here before I have to figure out where to poop.”

“Oh, you're doing it,” Lila said. “You are _so_ going to have to poop in a sock.”

“Why would I do that? What the— why the hell would I poop in a sock instead of just burying my load in the snow somewhere?”

“Because you gotta wipe with something, and then what? You're gonna put it back on?”

Scott sighed. “Goddamn wizards and their metal money.”

“It's good to hear from you, Scott. Everyone else extracted safely,” Sophie said cutting off another response from Lila. “I wish you had called sooner.”

“I fell asleep,” Scott admitted. “It's a pretty nice snow hole I made. I did a good job.”

“Be sure to come back as soon as you can, and I'll tell the Primes you lost the Death Eaters. Be safe and stay hidden,” Sophie said.

“I could stay here until the snow melts,” Scott assured her. “I'll be back soon.”

“Okay, call if anything changes. Bye!” Sophie ended the call then said, “Won't even let me see if he's okay, just talk right over me…”

“He was fine. If he wasn't that would have been the first thing he'd said. Come on, you thought it was funny. Admit it,” Lila said.

“Sure, some of it! But when I'm trying to debrief Scott—”

“He's sitting in a pile of snow somewhere, waiting to open an aperture and trying not to have to poop.”

“See, you're gross. You're both just too gross,” Sophie said, but it sounded like she was smiling.

Harry guiltily realised just how long he had been eavesdropping. It hadn't been his intention, but he'd sort of spaced out a bit in the darkened hall, tired and caught up in a conversation he hadn't even been a part of. He relaxed his face — he'd been grinning during parts of Scott and Lila's exchange without knowing it. Turning sleepily on his heel, he made his way back through the darkened hall, content in the knowledge that Scott was (probably) fine.

He had absolutely no memory of getting beneath the covers or of falling asleep, but he awoke with Ginny sitting on her knees next to him, running her cool palm across his cheek. “Thought you'd want me to wake you; Scott's just come back,” she said.

“In one piece?” Harry said groggily, trying to free himself from the covers.

“If he's hurt, it's not obvious. He's even got all the dosh.” Ginny's eyes gleamed mischievously in the dim bedroom. “I've never been rich before. I think I'll buy a car.”

“A car?” Harry repeated in surprise.

“Yeah, why not? I'll get a real fancy one that's green, and holds lots of people.”

“The fancy ones usually don't hold a lot of people,” Harry told her, finally managing to sit up.

“Fine, there will be just room for us. And we can drive it around when we need to fill our shopping trolleys with water, or get more bullets for our guns.”

“Our rich Muggle life: all the water we can shoot and guns we can drink.”

Ginny giggled and wrapped herself around him from behind whilst he put his trainers on. “Sort of too bad Sophie does all that now,” she mused, chin on his shoulder. “It was interesting, you know? There's so much out there. And you grew up in all that.”

“It's a big world,” Harry said shortly, not really wanting to discuss what he grew up in.

“I don't want to _be_ a Muggle, or anything, but maybe when this is over, we can still go to Muggle places, sometimes.” Ginny leaned forward playfully until he had to push back to keep from falling over. “Because I need those nacho crisps in my life.”

“Ugh. Not for breakfast,” Harry told her, rising and letting her drop back onto the bed.

She smirked up at him. “It's already noon, Harry. It's lunch.”

That was news to him. He tried to adjust his expectations accordingly, but his stomach demanded morning food. “I still want breakfast.”

“Well, when I came up Scott was destroying the cupboards to make pancakes, so you're probably in luck.”

Sure enough, when Harry went downstairs to the kitchen he found it in the midst of a minor uproar. Scott had filled every available space on the oven with a variety of cooking surfaces, all of which hosted bubbling batter. There was also a great deal of batter on the floor and worktops, and maybe even a little on the ceiling, if Harry's eyes weren't deceiving him. Sophie flitted around Scott like a desperate hummingbird, trying to preserve her precious cleanliness even as he actively destroyed it. Ron was sitting expectantly at the table and Harry was a bit surprised to see that Hermione was, as well. The dish rag on the table in front of her indicated she had given up whatever attempt to help she had been making.

It smelled heavenly. Harry took a seat across from Ron and watched as the stack of pancakes on a plate next to Scott grew higher. “He must be feeling all right,” Harry surmised, watching as Scott deftly flipped his creations over.

“You know how he gets afterwards.” Hermione sighed as she observed the mess being made.

“No no no no NO!” Sophie wailed as Scott accidentally tilted one of his griddles, sending a half-cooked pancake sliding up against the back of the oven where it pooled and began to burn. “Scott!”

“I got this,” he said, scooping the ruined pancake with his spatula. He deposited the doughy glob on an empty space somewhere to his left, still leaving behind plenty of smalls bits which began to char and smoke.

“You will scrape that. Not me, _you_ will,” Sophie told him, wrapping up the glob in a paper towel and discarding it.

Scott eyed her. “This is a really hostile work environment.”

“You're ruining everything!”

“I— wow. That was the biggest overuse of hyperbole ever. I…” Scott passed his free hand over the plate of pancakes, as if giving them his benediction. “…am cooking.”

“Why does _this_ have to happen for pancakes to happen?” Sophie demanded, waving away some of the smoke. “And why can't you cook without messing up every dish we have?”

“Sophie, come on,” Scott said, his faux-frustration suddenly turning real. “I'm tired, I'm hungry, everyone made it back and I'm pretty sure they want food, too, so I'm making it, all right? I'm sorry I'm a little sloppy, but these are for you, too. Look, I'll make you a heart-shaped one. See? Wait, hold on — it kind of just looks like a butt, let me fix it.”

“Okay, okay. I know, thank you for making pancakes,” Sophie said, somewhat mollified. “Just… please don't burn any more things.”

“Hey, we got magic now, remember? Just wave a wand and _pow.”_ Scott demonstrated with a flick and swish of his spatula, resulting in a long spatter across the wall. “It all goes away.”

“Oh my gosh,” Sophie muttered tightly. “If you did that on purpose…”

“That, I did not do on purpose, probably. This, though…” Scott said, starting to tip the pan closest to the edge of the oven.

“No!” Sophie half-shrieked, half-giggled, and lunged forward to grab Scott's arm with both hands, forcing him to stop. Scott didn't relent, of course, leading to a hands-free shoving match.

“How am I supposed to compete with these hips?” Scott said, staggering slightly as Sophie jolted him with a swivel of her side. “You're like a bumper car.”

“You always know just what to say to a la— don't you dare!” Sophie cringed away as Scott brought the greasy, dough-streaked spatula close to her hair. _“Scott! Eeeeeeee!”_

Harry winced; Sophie's voice was rather piercing at a high volume.

“And now they're rough-housing next to a hot oven,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

“Would that even hurt them?” Ginny wondered.

“I don't care, they'd just better not hurt the pancakes,” Ron said.

“Hey Ginnycide, how about we put our hands on the oven and see who moves first,” Scott called out as he turned away from a retreating Sophie. “Might answer your question.”

“How about you stop being a wanker and give me pancakes?” Ginny counter-offered.

“Ginny, you drive a hard burger. I accept your terms.”

The pancakes were delicious, as expected. Harry ate until he felt like he couldn't move, ravenous to the point he was fairly certain he'd inflicted permanent damage on himself.

“It occurs to me that he's been cooking this whilst wearing the same clothes from yesterday. After engaging in combat and sleeping in the snow,” Hermione said, looking down at her plate.

“He probably washed his hands,” Ron said, stuffing yet another partial pancake into his mouth. Given his rate of consumption, it was doubtful he would have stopped even if he thought Scott hadn't washed his hands.

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the 'probably', but took another bite, regardless.

“Did Lila go back to the Order?” Harry asked, having noticed her absence.

“No, apparently she had to retrieve a weapon she left in a Muggle skip last night. I expect she'll be back before too long even with the snow, she left fairly early,” Hermione said. “I've left Scott's box in the handbag, for the time being. There's no sense in confronting the Horcrux before everyone is present and rested.”

Harry concurred. He leaned back in his seat as far as he was able and seriously considered returning to bed for the day. He felt like it was owed him. He wanted to shut the world out for a little while with a comfortable pillow and a Ginny-blanket, which was vastly superior to a traditional blanket by virtue of being heated, being Ginny and having breasts. Contrasted with staying awake, it definitely seemed like the superior option.

He swivelled in his seat to ask Ginny what her plans were and to propose his own, when he saw that Scott, who actually was assisting Sophie in cleaning up, was trying to catch his eye. Harry met the gaze curiously.

Scott gave him a knowing look from across the room. Then he approached Sophie, bent forward slightly, and took her hand. “Milady,” he said, kissing it lightly.

Sophie giggled delightedly. “Milord!” she immediately reciprocated, curtseying gracefully by holding out an invisible dress with her fingers.

When Scott turned away from her, he raised a smug eyebrow in Harry's direction. Harry narrowed his eyes in response, accepting the unspoken challenge. He surveyed his available targets, and reckoned that Ginny would probably be receptive enough. Then Lila came down the stairs, SAW bouncing against her hip from where it was slung over one shoulder. Harry set his jaw, stood, and approached her.

Lila saw him coming towards her with determination and stopped, head tilted slightly in question. She stood still as Harry took her hand, kissed the back of it, and said, “Milady.”

Lila looked down at the back of her hand, then back up at Harry. “…Duke Harrington?” she replied, one eyebrow raised dubiously.

“Bet with Scott,” Harry said quickly, as it was sort of true.

“I knew it.”

Harry returned to the table next to Ginny, who was staring at him. “What was _that?”_ she wanted to know.

“Sort of a thing I had with Scott. Long story,” Harry explained.

“You're so weird.” Ginny shifted in her seat, looking slightly out of sorts. “…You could have kissed my hand,” she added.

“Rather kiss you elsewhere,” he told her, leaning in close to her ear.

Not close enough, though, as Ron still heard him. “Mate, I'm trying to eat. You see what I'm doing? I'm _eating.”_

“If Harry could only kiss me when you weren't eating, we'd have never got anywhere,” Ginny said.

Ron was too busy with his pancakes to even bother arguing. “Fair point.”

“We'll have to hold a meeting today. I know we still need to address the issue with Harry, but we should still be considering our next move. I'd like to know what the Order intends, at the very least,” Hermione said, pushing her plate away.

“No, not today,” Harry disagreed. “I think we should have some time to rest, first.”

Hermione treated him with a level stare. “In other words, you'd like to go back to your bed.”

“I don't think that's so much to ask,” Harry said with careful dignity.

“Perhaps not, but our mission is more than a bit crucial, and—”

“Hermione, look — I know you're right, but we're all going to have to think about this anyway. We don't know what to do next, not about Riddle, and I'm supposing whatever you have planned for me is going to take more time?”

“I'm not prepared to try anything yet, if that's what you mean. I do have an idea, though,” she was quick to remind him.

“Yeah, I remember. I'm sure it's brilliant,” he said accommodatingly, “but I really think we need a break. We just did the impossible.”

Ginny leaned against his shoulder. “I can't believe we all made it out,” she said wonderingly.

Ron nodded, spearing the last of his pancakes. “That was bloody amazing. Nobody will ever believe us.”

“I'd say we've got about six bags worth of proof,” Ginny said with a gleam in her eye. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few Galleons for emphasis.

“Ginny!” Hermione said in shock. “Did you really steal those from the team funds?”

“What, _steal?_ Where am I going to spend them?” Ginny retorted. “Besides, don't we all get a share?”

“No, we don't. That money is for our operations,” Hermione said strictly.

Ron held out a hand across the table. “Half of those are mine,” he told Ginny.

“Sod off, get your own,” Ginny said, using Harry as a shield.

“Fine, where are they all?” Ron asked.

“No one is taking any!” Hermione forcefully reiterated.

That sparked off another verbal squabble between them, almost comforting in its familiarity. Whilst that was happening, Harry put his head closer to Ginny's ear and said, “Why _did_ you take them?”

“I was talking to Lila this morning, and she asked what we were doing to celebrate our successful mission,” Ginny began to explain, “and then I said we don't really do that, or we haven't, and she said yeah, because you're always on the next step but now we have to lay low for a bit, since we stirred up so much shit — that was how she put it. So I asked her how they do it, you know, the Primares or whatever, and she told me this story about this game she played in a different unit she was in. I think she said 'unit'. I don't know the difference between that and what she's in now… But, so, she said they put alcohol in a glass and then make bets with chips, and then try to toss them in, and if you make it you get to keep the chip, but if you miss have to drink.”

“Chips?” Harry said, confused.

“She meant money. Their money isn't coins or paper, it's something else. I didn't really get that part. But I thought me and you could give it a go, so I grabbed some Galleons.”

Harry was game. “We could play with juice or something, sure.”

Ginny frowned. “Kind of boring, isn't it? Too bad we don't have any alcohol. I doubt Sophie puts that on her lists.”

Harry doubted it, as well. Which was unfortunate, really. He'd had a bit of wine before, but he wouldn't have minded trying a harder drink or two, see if he had any taste for them. The Dursleys hadn't been drinkers, Vernon only consuming the rare pint around the holidays. Harry hadn't the opportunity to try any, even after he'd been old enough to consider it. He knew that the Weasley boys drank sometimes. They might have offered him some, he imagined, now that he was of age, but summer days at The Burrow were a thing of the past (he didn't allow himself to hope that they might again be a thing of the future).

He could just imagine what Mrs Weasley would have thought of that, if she'd discovered it. Of course, now there he was, free from parental restrictions, out on his own, and he still couldn't get any liquor. He may have been relatively estranged from the Muggle world, but he knew he was too young to buy any for himself. Even if he were a year older, it wasn't as if he had any proper identification. Plus, he had a hard time imagining Sophie giving him the quid for spirits. Harry felt like it was a safe assumption that drinking was the sort of thing she would disapprove of. She would probably think it very irresponsible to…

Harry's eyes involuntarily tracked over to Scott. The older man was still scrubbing away at the oven, as Sophie had ordained. In his half-removed assault gear — rumpled jumpsuit, tactical straps with karabiners still attached dangling at his waist, boots with heavy tape wrapped around his ankles — he looked tired, experienced and a bit dangerous. He looked like a man who was concerned with things like enemy numbers, ammunition, casualty counts; a man who probably didn't give two shits about under-age drinking.

Maybe.

It didn't really matter what Scott looked like, as Harry actually knew him and knew that Scott _was_ tired, experienced and a lot more than a bit dangerous, but he was also a hundred other things, one of which was being rather difficult to predict. Harry had no idea if Scott would buy alcohol for them (though he was almost certain that teen-Scott would have), but he was probably a better bet than Sophie.

“Scott could get us some,” Harry said to Ginny.

Ginny's eyes lit up. “Yeah? You think he would?”

Harry shrugged.

Ginny looked over at Scott, assessing him much as Harry had. “…Well, it's not like he's much like Mum. If Sophie was talking about working a job, he might not want to spend the money, though.”

That brought Harry up short. If the Muggle money was that much of an issue, then Harry wouldn't want to spend it on alcohol, either. “Only one way to find out.”

Harry made the tactical decision to wait until Sophie wasn't in Scott's vicinity. That seemed like the safest bet for all involved. He returned to his room for a nap that took him well into the evening, and Ginny hadn't needed any convincing to join him. And for all her insistence on moving forward, Harry suspected Hermione wasn't getting much reading done either. Everyone was tired. Even the Kharadjai were taking the day off: after rising, Harry had discovered that Sophie had ordered several pizzas and placed them on the kitchen table, letting them be eaten at each individual's discretion, and that was the end of her involvement with supper. After eating several slices, Harry sought out Scott and found the man face-down on the bed in the motorcycle room.

“Er… You awake?” Harry said uncertainly in the doorway.

“I'm face-down on a bed, you figure it out,” Scott said, voice muffled by the covers.

“Nobody sleeps like that. You look like you're going to suffocate.”

Scott grunted wordlessly in response.

Harry was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't try again later. If Scott was already in a recalcitrant mood then Harry didn't want to ask for any favours, yet. “I'll let you sleep,” he said, turning to leave.

“Look, you obviously wanted something,” Scott said, still steadfastly speaking into the mattress.

“Not anything important.”

Scott sat up suddenly with an almost angry motion, as if somehow maddened by Harry's response. “I'll be the judge of that.”

Now Harry _really_ didn't want to bring it up. “No, it really isn't important, it's not for the mission or anything.”

“Jesus, just spit it out,” Scott said shortly.

Scott's usual post-mission energetic demeanour had obviously degraded over the course of Harry's nap into a sleep-deprived, shirty Scott. Harry wasn't going to take his chances. “Don't worry about it. I'll talk to you later,” he said, quickly stepping out and shutting the door before Scott could retort.

Harry hurried down the hall, knowing there was a fairly good chance Scott would actually pursue him, depending on just how irritable he was feeling.

Downstairs, Ginny was grazing on the pizza at a leisurely pace. “Well?” she said upon seeing Harry.

“He was all tired and narky, so I didn't ask,” Harry said.

“You want me to?”

Harry couldn't imagine any scenario in which that ended well. “No, I'll just try him later.”

He received his chance the next morning when he ended up alone with Scott in the training room, taking his turn with the weights after Ron. Scott had been unusually quiet, but seemed more introspective than grumpy. Harry reckoned it was as a good a time as any.

“Scott, do you think you could do me a favour?” he said.

Harry wished that Scott were the sort of friend who would agree immediately, but he knew better than to hope for that. Sure enough, Scott's demeanour turned wary. “Like what?”

For about half a second, Harry began trying to put together the words to tactfully broach the subject of drinking. Then he remembered who he was talking to and abandoned the effort, because what was the point? “Ginny and I wanted to know if you'd get some alcohol for us.”

Scott had no discernible reaction. “…Why?” He shook himself slightly and then said, in a bit more animated fashion, “I mean, obviously to drink it, but is this a wine and candles type thing or are we drinking to forget…?”

“Drinking to drink, I guess,” Harry said. “Just to try it. And, I don't know, maybe celebrate?”

Scott crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “You don't sound very positive about this.”

“It's not a big deal…”

“Not with that attitude.”

“What? Are you willing to or not?”

“Maybe.”

“Depending on…?”

“You.”

“Look, it came up and I thought it would be fun. If you don't want to help me, fine,” Harry said, disappointed.

“I didn't say that.”

“You haven't said anything. You've just been all daft and suspicious for no reason.” Harry raised his hands in disbelief. “What are you even doing? I ask if you'll buy some whiskey or whatever and you're acting like I told you I wanted to make a serious commitment! You're being effing weird, even for you.”

Scott pursed his lips contemplatively. “Yes, I can see how you might think that.”

“Brilliant. I'm glad we had this talk.” Harry turned to leave.

“What do you want me to buy?”

Harry spun on his heel. “Oh, good, did I pass whatever stupid test you made up for me in your head?”

“You want to talk commitment? Cool, then let's start there.” Scott pointed at Harry. “I'll get you booze, because you'll get it someday and it might as well be now, and there are decisions that everyone has to make for themselves. But don't make a habit of it, and don't expect me to get you drugs whenever you want in the future.”

“I'm not asking you to get _drugs!”_ Harry said, outraged.

Scott squinted at him. “Are you sure you know what alcohol is? I'm not buying it for you if you don't understand what it is.”

“I should have asked Lila,” Harry muttered.

Scott's face lit up. “That would have been so amazingly awkward. I'd pay real money to see that.”

“Yeah, this hasn't been awkward at all,” Harry said.

Scott gave him a dry look. “Get a piece of paper, get a pen — not a quill, a _pen_ — and write down what you want. Liquor ain't cheap, either, so you probably won't get all of it. Choose wisely.”

Ten minutes later, Harry was sitting on his bed with Ginny, the two of them pooling their limited knowledge to come up with a list. Neither of them knew a lot about alcohol, so they lacked the ability to be specific. It had been mutually agreed upon to skip spending any money on the weaker end of the spectrum, like beer or wine, and go straight to the good stuff they could use to play the game Lila had described. So far they had written down whiskey, vodka, rum and schnapps, which Harry was fairly certain was a real thing.

When presented with the list, Scott quickly perused it and then added a few notations of his own. “Unimaginative, but you covered the basics,” he commented.

“Then you pick whatever's best, since you apparently know so much,” Harry said, remembering Scott's unsolicited 'expert' opinion on the vinegar they had turned to wine during class.

“You'll get what you get and you'll like it,” Scott said mockingly.

“I don't know if I'll like it. That's sort of the point.”

“You won't,” Scott predicted. “Did you ask Hermione and Ron what they wanted?”

Harry glanced away. “Uh… I don't know if we should tell Hermione.”

“It's not like she can stop me. You'll get your shit either way, you might as well ask her.”

“She could tell Sophie.”

Scott's jaw set. “So?”

And just like that, Harry had somehow set into motion a potential house-wide conflict. “So… she wouldn't like it?”

“She doesn't have to. It's your decision.”

Well. That made it quite clear where Scott considered the responsibility to be. “All right. I'll ask Ron and Hermione if they'd like anything.”

He met Ginny in the hallway as she came up from the kitchen. “Is he going?” she asked.

“Not yet. I'm supposed to ask Ron and Hermione if they want something, too,” Harry told her.

She stared at him. “Are you serious?”

Harry shrugged apologetically. “Scott wants me to. And since he's the only one who'll go for us…”

“I could ask Lil,” Ginny offered.

Harry sort of wished they had gone that route to begin with. “Yeah, but I already asked Scott and if Lila goes she's just going to tell him she's leaving, first, so it's not like he won't know.”

Ginny sighed impatiently. “Fine. Ron will just want whiskey anyway, since that's what Bill and Charlie and the twins always have. And Hermione will want to lecture us, so that'll be a laugh.”

Harry found her snark cute, and also accurate. “Let's just get this done.”

They split up; Ron was in the kitchen and Ginny went down to him whilst Harry went upstairs to see Hermione. He knocked on the door to her room.

“Yes?” she called out.

“It's Harry. Can I come in?”

“It's unlocked.”

Harry entered the room to find her paging through yet another enormous tome. Once again, he dispensed with tact. “Scott's going out to get us some liquor and wants to know if you want anything.”

Hermione froze, and then slowly closed her book. “And you plan to get drunk?” she said calmly.

Harry was now more worried than he would have been if she'd immediately launched into a diatribe. “Er, maybe. We're going to try some and celebrate, since everything went well.”

“I'm honestly surprised it took this long to happen,” Hermione murmured to no one in particular. Then she refocussed on Harry. “Tell Scott if we're celebrating then I'd like some champagne, if it's not too much trouble.”

Harry blinked. “…Champagne?”

“Yes, Harry. It's a sort of sparkling wine.”

“Um, yeah, I know, I just… All right. Champagne. I'll tell him.”

“Thank you,” Hermione said a bit dismissively, and went back to her book.

Harry stepped out and closed the door behind him, feeling like he _had_ been given a dressing down, only an extremely subtle one. Hermione's unspoken reproof seemed more aimed at his expectations than any issue of alcohol, if he was reading her right. He couldn't quite tell if she was accepting or simply resigned. Either way, he'd underestimated her.

Back downstairs, Ginny was waiting. “That was quick,” she noted.

“She wants champagne,” Harry said.

“What, no lecture?” Ginny said with surprise.

“She didn't seem really happy about it, but she didn't go on or anything.”

“Lucky you, I guess. Ron's already talked to Scott, too. Wanted whiskey, big surprise. Scott's about ready to pop out.”

Harry went into the training room, where Scott was waiting. “Hey, I talked to Hermione and she asked if you could get her some champagne.”

“Champagne it is,” Scott said.

He folded up his list, stuck it in his pocket, and made it about three steps towards the doorway when Sophie appeared in it with her hands on her hips and her green eyes flashing.

“Excuse me,” Scott said casually, trying to step around her. She quickly moved to block him. “Excuse me,” he said again, going the other way.

Sophie pushed him none too gently back into the room. “What are you doing?”

“I'm trying to walk through a doorway, but there seems to be some kind of force preventing me—”

“Scott Middle-Name Kharan!” Sophie said, her voice climbing even higher into the upper registers.

“You do know it sounds dumb when you say that? I just don't have a middle name, you don't have to compensate.”

“I cannot believe you, are you really going to—”

“Granted, then you sort of lose the 'full name' impact…”

“—be drinking tonight? What brought this on? And in—”

“…Even though it is my full name, technically, so…”

“—the middle of an integration!”

Scott held up his hands to stop her. “I'm not drinking tonight.”

She glared at him suspiciously. “You aren't buying alcohol?”

“I am, but it's for the Primes. They wanted to celebrate the bank job,” Scott explained.

“Well that's… another issue,” Sophie said, mulling that over for a second.

“Sophie, I'm aware of the objections you're going to raise,” Scott said in an oddly formal manner. “I know you disagree with my willingness to facilitate in this matter. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending you don't understand my reasoning or the psychology at work here. If you want to stop this, I'm not the person to convince.”

Sophie looked at him very seriously. “But you're not drinking?”

“I hadn't planned on it.” Scott met her gaze; there was something heavy in the air between them. He then lowered his head a bit and said, quietly, “It is your business.”

Sophie visibly relaxed, mouth parting slightly and eyes softening. She placed a gentle hand on Scott's arm as she stepped past him. Harry had no idea what was happening, but he saw the way that Sophie's stance became stiff once more as she approached him, and braced himself.

“So,” she said, coming to a stop in front of him with her hands realigning to her hips. “You think getting drunk is a good idea.”

Harry felt that wasn't a very fair representation. “We don't have to get drunk…”

“But you're going to,” she pressed.

“I didn't say that, we just wanted to try some. You know, celebrate.”

“And you think that getting drunk is how grown-ups celebrate?” Sophie said sternly.

“Uh… Sometimes?” Harry looked to Scott for help. Scott rolled his hand in a gesture for Harry to continue, which wasn't helpful at all.

Sophie was temporarily derailed by his honesty. “…Well, maybe so,” she said after a blank moment. “But that doesn't mean you have to.”

“No, I suppose not. But it's still my decision,” Harry said, deciding to just own it, since that seemed to be what Scott wanted, anyway.

“But it's not an informed one!” Sophie's hand shot up. “Cirrhosis, hypertension, pancreatitis—” she began counting on her fingers.

“Teen pregnancy,” Scott offered with a Cheshire grin.

Sophie gasped. _“Teen pregnancy—_ no, no, no, you don't do anything like that if you aren't sober, Harry!”

Harry gave Scott a very dark look over Sophie's shoulder. “We're all doing this together! Wait, I mean, not _that_ , together, but it's a party. Something quiet, just friends, it's not like we can go anywhere. If you're so against this, you don't have to join us.”

“I don't have anything against a party,” Sophie protested.

“Kind of sounds like you do,” Scott said behind her.

“I don't!”  
  
“Good. So it's settled,” Harry said quickly, trying to step around her.

He was halted by a very small but disproportionately strong hand against his chest. “I can't stop you,” Sophie told him, even though she was doing just that. “But you need to understand that alcohol is very bad for you and can ruin your life and make you make babies when you're still a baby!”

That crossed the line, for Harry. “Sophie, I'm an adult!”

“I wouldn't go with that, dude,” Scott advised from the sidelines.

Sophie nodded reluctantly. “Maybe in this culture, that's true. And that's not up to me. But if it _were_ up to me—”

“It's not,” Harry interrupted her. “I… Sorry. But I'm seventeen and you're not my mum and I understand that alcohol isn't good for you, but I'd still like to try it. All right? I don't get why this is such a big deal. I didn't want to _fight_ about it…”

Sophie looked hurt for a moment, and then her expression hardened. “Fine,” she said, stalking away. “You be an adult and get drunk and when you're suffocating on your own vomit you'd better hope I'm around to roll you over.”

Harry and Scott stood in silence after she left. “Welp,” Scott said, breaking it as he also went for the door, “I'll be taking that image with me to the liquor store.”

Harry grimaced. “She really thinks I'm going to choke to death?”

“Don't take it personally. You're not even close to the first friend who's gotten that speech.” Scott paused in the doorway. “I'll get some junk food, too. Tomorrow night we'll celebrate a successful mission. And all the others, too. Kind of a one party fits all situation.”

“Yeah. Sounds good,” Harry said, and it really did. So far all the decompression they'd done between missions had mostly involved a lot of sleeping and research and some exercise. An actual celebration might be what they needed.

They'd definitely earned it, after all.


	40. Blow Out

**40**

**Blow Out**

\---

_“See you standing by the window  
_ _I see you lifting up that glass  
_ _You know I’m right there with you  
_ _Come on, let’s make it last  
_ _Tonight, we’ll be just fine  
_ _Yeah, we’ll feel alright  
_ _Got to toast to no tomorrows  
_ _Gonna drink back the night”_

_—_ Hometown Strangers, _Fifty Ounce Anthem_

\---

“I think it's okay,” Sophie said. She released Lila's foot, which she had been probing with her thumbs. “Does it still hurt?”

“Of course. You know how this works,” Lila said, slipping her sock back on.

“Yes, but it would be worse if it was numb.”

“There's something to be said for numbness.” Lila grunted when she set her foot back on the floor.

The impromptu examination was taking place in the drawing room. The mission board still sat on the wall, a vivid reminder of their recent success. Sophie wanted to save it for posterity. She was very much in favour of forward planning, and the board was a monument to the efficiency of a well-prepared operation. Besides, Scott and Lila weren't particularly diligent when it came to the preservation of UO artefacts (or at least Scott wasn't when it came to the ones that had nothing to do with pop culture or weaponry). They tended to not go the extra mile when it involved extra paperwork.

“Getting trashed at the party?” Lila said with a hint of a smile.

“No. Are you?”

“I have to get Kylie and rejoin the Order soon. I might not be here.”

“And I have to be the one sober person in the house, especially if Kylie is here.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Scott won't be drinking.”

“He'd better not,” Sophie muttered, seating herself on the couch. “We don't have the money for it. I should never have let this happen.”

“It's not your call, Strauss. If Scott thinks this is good for integration—”

“Bribing under-age Primes with alcohol?!” Sophie interrupted. “I know he's not Centric School but this is out of line. And since when does he give the Primes whatever they want?”

Lila lay down on the couch and propped her foot up on the arm rest, blocking Sophie in. “He's giving them what they think they want. And they aren't under-age.”

“Well…” Sophie's argument faltered internally. She was self-aware enough to know her objections were strong because they were based on her upbringing and cultural background, and because of Scott's own history. That didn't really change how she felt about it, though. “I just don't know what he's thinking,” she settled on saying.

“Don't be a buzzkill,” was Lila's less than helpful advice.

Sophie tossed her hands up. “Woo-hoo, yeah, let's all poison ourselves and throw up on things!”

“You _do_ get it.”

Sophie huffed in exasperation. “I _don't_ get it. What's so fun about being really sick?”

“That comes after.” Lila closed her eyes and began carefully rotating her freshly healed foot. “Why not try it? Down a bottle, laugh too hard at everything, give Scott a sloppy BJ and tell me all about it in the morning, minus the BJ part.”

“I'm not doing any of those things.”

One grey eye partially opened, assessing her. “Could be what you and Scott need.”

Sophie was not in the mood to be needled. “What I need is for you to stop being a jerk.”

The eye closed. “How about you go be absolutely no fun somewhere else, then, and let the rest of us relax.”

Sophie tried not to be hurt by the dismissal, but she was. “You know what? Fine! You can all go drink chemicals and ruin your organs without stick-in-the-mud Sophie around.” She lifted Lila's leg out the way and ducked under it, striding out of the room.

“You're being dramatic,” Lila called after her.

Maybe so, but Sophie was good and steamed and just going with it. She worked and worked to make the house nice and provide food and do tricky magic things that no one else could do (no one else! Just her!), but her opinion apparently still counted for nothing. And while Lila had been more teasing than anything else, it still was far from the first time in Sophie's life that she had been accused of being no fun, and it upset her. She liked fun just fine, thank you very much, she just preferred it not involve vomiting. (In the back of her mind she knew that drinking really was a decision the Primes had to make for themselves, but it was more satisfying to be angry).

The real question was what to do about Kylie. Grimmauld's youngest resident was due to be collected by Lila within the next couple of hours. There had already been some debate as to whether it would be better to leave her in the Order's care indefinitely, but in the end it wasn't as if she were safer under one Fidelius over another. Besides, she was safer in Sophie's near-constant company than with Trevor's mother. Sophie wanted Kylie to come back; she was fond of the girl and knew that Kylie considered Grimmauld to be home. A drunken party, however, was no place for a twelve-year-old.

Sophie considered asking Lila to delay. At least that way Kylie could see everyone hung over and remorseful, which was the only aspect of drinking she needed to be exposed to. And Scott would (for once) be a good example.

Sophie's mood darkened further when she heard the distinctive clink of bottles coming from the kitchen. She considered avoiding it entirely, but that was _her_ clean kitchen, darn it, and nobody had better be messing it up.

Scott was at the kitchen table with Hermione, arranging a slightly wider assortment of liquor than she had assumed he'd be able to afford. Apparently, Lila had made a more generous donation to the drink fund than she should have. Sophie briefly considered going back upstairs to have some more words with her friend.

“It's all cheap,” Scott was saying as he turned the bottles so the labels aligned. “As cheap as this shit gets, anyway. Well, okay; not bottom of the barrel, but I'm not shelling out thirty pounds for something older than you.”

“I doubt Ron and Harry are that discerning,” Hermione said dryly.

“You'll be happy to know your champagne comes in a glass bottle, not a box,” Scott said, lifting it for her inspection.

“Does it have a cork to pop?”  
  
“Of course. You gotta have that.”

“That's a good party detail. Or will that make it feel like New Year's?”

“Hey, New Year's isn't that far away.”

“True. Oh, perhaps we should wait and make this a Christmas party?”

“Nah, don't get drunk on Christmas. Keep it classy. You get drunk at the parties that happen _before_ Christmas. Like this one.”

“I have no intention of getting drunk,” Hermione stated.

“Then you can join me in sobriety. And Sophie, who's standing in the stairwell and eavesdropping like a creep.”

“You're a creep,” Sophie shot back, stomping down into the kitchen.

“That's not relevant. Also, why are you so pissed off?” Scott asked.

Sophie pointed at the collected booze. “You're really asking?”

Scott sighed. “Sophie, this is one of those times you need to let people hurt themselves a little.”

“But it's so bad for you!” she almost wailed. “Why not something else? Why didn't you get them a little marijuana?”

Hermione's jaw nearly hit the table. _“What?”_

Scott chortled gleefully. “Ah, I was wondering if this little cultural divide would ever come up.”

Sophie frowned, not sure what he meant. She thought over her limited knowledge of western GEP standards. “…Um, yes, that's illegal. But so is under-age drinking!”

Scott turned to Hermione, who was still aghast. “See, Sophie doesn't realise what side of the argument she's on, relative to your cultural norms. She's got her feet planted into two places: the objective medical fact that alcohol is way worse for your body than marijuana, and a rather strong Veccian bias against drink. Go temperance.”

 “I am not in the League!” Sophie countered. “If you were just talking about some drinking for enjoyment, well, I guess that's not an entirely unhealthy choice—”

“That's exactly what I'm talking about,” Hermione interjected.

“—but we all know there's binging planned and that is… not good!”

“Well put,” Scott said. “But, again, not your decision. Now, if these—” he flicked his nails against the bottles with a series of tinny clinks, “—should interfere with the mission at some point in the future, I'll be right there with you.”

“That would be unacceptable,” Hermione agreed. She then added, very strongly, “As would marijuana.”

Sophie certainly wasn't going to press that issue. Marijuana was far less deleterious than alcohol but it could just as easily be abused. She'd just as soon not have _any_ drugs introduced to Grimmauld; other than antibiotics, anaesthetics and other necessities, of course.

“There's also the question of music,” Scott said, wisely changing the subject.

Hermione frowned in thought. “I honestly can't recall Ron listening to much of anything. Ginny has a slight preference for the Weird Sisters, though I wouldn't call her a real enthusiast. And Harry… I have no idea. I doubt the Dursleys ever allowed him any records. I don't know what he's familiar with.”

“Good thing we have you and your refined taste in Muggle music,” Scott said.

Hermione treated him with a level look. “As if you know the first thing about my taste in music.”

Scott flipped a dismissive hand in her direction. “I can guess.”

“Oh, I didn't realise we had a resident expert.” Hermione crossed her arms. “What's my favourite album?”

Scott leaned forward and squinted at her for a long, intense moment. “… _'(What's the Story) Morning Glory?',”_ he said, relaxing.

Hermione scoffed and looked away. “You got lucky.”

Sophie was far more engaged by talk of music than she had been of alcohol. “We could move the table, and put lights on the ceiling, and Lila could sing something—”

“Sophie, there's less than ten of us,” Scott said, dashing her imaginings. “You'll have to wait to arrange your second prom.”

“My second what?”

Scott made a sound of understanding and restated, “The venue is a little small for a début twenty-two.”

That ended Sophie's short dream of a classy dance party. She had some very mixed memories of her début. “Well… We can still have music.”

“I'm sure something will be on the stereo while everyone sits in a circle in one of the bedrooms and take turns doing shots until someone chukes in a drawer.”

Sophie frowned at him. “Ha ha. Maybe not everyone wants a gross 'party' like that.”

“I don't know, they were pretty popular in the Fleet.”

“We don't need to talk about what's popular in the Fleet,” Sophie said with distaste.

“We probably won't all be able to agree on one thing,” Hermione said reasonably. “We can always let the radio decide.”

“Or me. Just saying,” Scott said a bit too casually.

Hermione looked uncertain. “You'd probably subject us to some bizarre futuristic Kharadjai music that sounds like industrial machinery, or some such thing.”

“Futuristic? You guys already have that.”

Sophie was offended on her culture's behalf. “I have a nice collection of classically arranged strings.”

“Yeah, Sophie's right, her music _is_ boring,” Scott said. “I'll show you guys how to rock.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “As I said, the radio must arbitrate.”

“I can teach you how to thrash…” Scott wheedled.

“As enticing as that sounds, I'll just have to do without.”

Sophie's mental picture of her preferred party was going up in smoke. “There's nothing wrong with my music for a party,” she said defensively.

“Eh, we should go tech-eq contemporary though,” Scott said. “Probably Muggle.”

“You're just saying that so you can play your loud, sad stuff!” Sophie retorted. “The Primes already know about plenty of Kharadjai things.”

“Sometimes it's loud and angry,” Scott said mildly.

“We'll talk about it later, it's not up to just us, anyway,” Sophie said, tired of the argument and just about tired of the entire concept of a party. “I'm going to tell Lila to wait until tomorrow to get Kylie.”

“What? No, don't do that,” Scott protested. “She'll be crushed if we exclude her.”

Sophie stared at him. “There's going to be drinking!”

“I'm not. You're not. Obviously, she isn't. Give her a little credit, she's not stupid or that impressionable. Besides, if it wasn't for her we wouldn't have snagged the Horcrux,” Scott argued.

“We can have a second party for her,” Sophie suggested.

Scott just gave her an unimpressed look. “Don't be patronising.”

“Well…” Sophie did feel a bit bad for making the suggestion. “I just don't know if everyone will behave with all…” She gestured at the gathered liquor.

“We'll be there, it'll be fine. She'll be in bed before anything gets crazy.”

Sophie wasn't entirely convinced, but it was true that their success wouldn't have been possible without Kylie, and the girl would be very hurt if she were excluded from the victory party. Maybe things could be kept low-key until she retired for the night, and there were spells that could prevent her from being disturbed by any noise. Hopefully she wouldn't be overly curious about the alcohol. At least she was likely to follow Scott's example.

***---~**~---*** 

Harry looked around the table at the faces of his friends, all of them fixated on him expectantly. He wasn't quite sure why he'd agree to say something to start the evening. It wasn't as if words were his forte. He'd just as soon let Ron or Scott make a joke or two and then get right to the partying (not that he knew a lot about that, either). He gripped his faded plastic cup of champagne in both hands and searched for something to say.

“Er… Well, this is a first,” he said, which earned him a few smiles. Encouraged, he continued, “I'm glad we decided to do this. Maybe we needed to, or maybe we just wanted to try some alcohol without the adults giving us dirty looks.”

“Then we're off to a rubbish start,” Ginny said, nodding towards Sophie and getting some scattered laughs.

“This is perfectly fine and appropriate,” Sophie denied, holding her own small cup of champagne.

“We'll see if that's the line later,” Scott said, standing next to an attentive Kylie.

“Anyway, I know we still have a long way to go. We aren't done yet,” Harry said. “But, I think we should, um, celebrate how far we've come, how much we've already done. Everyone's worked really hard to get us this far. So, cheers.”

“Cheers,” they all echoed, and downed their allotment of champagne (even Kylie had a little in her cup, and when she lowered it she looked about as happy as Harry had ever seen her, so glad to be included).

With that, the party officially began. As most everyone else gravitated towards the food, Harry stayed by the liquor. He'd eaten a bit before the party proper, which he knew he shouldn't have, but he'd been starving. His goal was to sample the alcohol until he found something he liked or realised drinking wasn't for him, whichever came first.

Scott had noticed Harry hovering near the liquor and returned from the food, finishing a handful of crisps. Kylie followed closely at his side, clutching a chicken sandwich.

“We'll start you with this,” Scott said, picking up a bottle of something clear.

“Is that good?” Harry asked as Scott poured a small amount in the bottom of a glass.

“No, it's fucking awful and only crazy people drink it straight.” As soon as Scott finished his sentence, he winced and glanced down at Kylie. She looked up at him innocently, taking a tiny bite of her sandwich. Scott sighed. “Anyway, after this everything else will go down easy.”

Harry took the glass, peering into it. “Come on, you can give me more than that.”

“You would not thank me. Finish that shot, and then tell me you want more.”

Harry shrugged and raised the glass to his lips. Scott caught his wrist just before he tipped it. “Don't sip this,” Scott instructed. “Down the hatch.”

“So how am I supposed to taste it?”

Scott slowly shook his head. “You really don't get this, do you.”

“Fine.” Harry raised the glass again and tossed it back. Then he began violently coughing as his oesophagus seemed to be dissolving.

It was fucking fire in a glass. His gums burned, tongue aflame — even the drop which had run down his chin was like acid against his skin and lips. He felt like he'd swallowed some sort of industrial-grade solvent and he could feel it in his stomach, burning away like a bonfire. He frantically scrubbed at his mouth with his hand, trying to wipe away the pain, but it only spread.

His coughing fit had garnered attention. Ginny came to his side, concerned. “Bloody hell, Harry, what happened?”

Lila wandered over with a can of pop in hand, taking a long sip as she assessed Harry's condition with obvious enjoyment. “Decided to take your digestive system into your own hands, I see.”

Harry took the cup of carbonated sweetness that Ginny offered and tried to wash the blaze out of his mouth. It helped a little, although the bubbles were painful within his newly scoured orifice.

“God!” he hacked, finally handing Ginny back her drink.

“And he wanted more,” Scott said to Lila.

“So manly. I might just swoon,” Lila predicted, taking another swig of her drink.

“Don't drink any of that,” Harry said hoarsely, pointing out the bottle to Ginny.

Sophie snatched the bottle off the table and examined the label. “Scott, why the crud would you buy this?”

“Part of being introduced to alcohol is understanding exactly what you're getting yourself into,” Scott said.

Sophie's mouth thinned. “Do you have any idea what rectified alcohol can do to a baseline's innards?”

“Yes. And now Harry does, too.”

Ron stepped forward with his jaw set bravely. “My turn,” he said.

Sophie looked like she was about to run off with the bottle. Then she set it back on the table with a dramatic bang. “Do not drink any more of this than Harry just did, even if you mix it with something. I _promise_ you, you will be sick.”

Ron was still insistent on having his go at it. He didn't cough as much as Harry but his eyes watered at the strain of suppressing his reaction and for a moment he looked like he might vomit. Harry examined the bottle whilst Ron recovered, noting it specifically stated it was not for human consumption unless mixed with something non-alcoholic. Served Harry right for drinking whatever Scott handed him, he supposed.

“Daft boys,” Hermione muttered, watching them intentionally suffer.

Ginny stepped up to the table. “Me, now.”

Hermione sighed deeply and turned away, going back to the food.

The process repeated itself, Ginny coughing until her face was bright red. “Bloody hell, that's terrible,” she rasped.

“Everything else will go down like milk by comparison,” Lila told her.

The rectified alcohol was retired shortly after, no one wanting anything else to do with it. Scott proved himself an able bartender, mixing everyone much milder drinks. Harry helped himself to some crackers and cheese in between sips of the whiskey and cola Scott had given him. Ginny sidled up to him and stole a few items off his plate.

“What's that?” he asked of her drink.

“Orange juice and vodka. Lila said it's better with tequila, but we haven't got any,” she said. She took another drink and grimaced slightly. “Honestly, I don't see how it's any better than just orange juice.”

Harry was a bit disappointed with his drink, too. “Maybe it's an acquired taste.”

“Lila told me I wouldn't like it much now and then I'd like it too much later. I don't know, though. Just tastes like orange juice with an Acid Pop dipped in it.”

Harry was determined to enjoy the alcohol he'd had to argue to get. He tossed back the rest of his drink and clenched his teeth against his gag reflex. “I'm going to get another.”

He went over to the liquor, where Scott was making something or the other for Lila. Whilst Harry was waiting for his turn, he was suddenly made aware that he was sweating when a drop rolled down the side of his face and nearly dripped into his cup. When had it become so hot in the kitchen? Too many people, he supposed, and too little space.

Once Lila wandered off with her drink, Harry stepped forward and handed Scott his empty cup. “Bloody hot in here, huh,” he commented.

“Nope,” Scott said. “Touch your cheek.”

Harry reached up and did so. His cheek burned beneath his cool fingers. “I'm feverish?” he said dumbly.

“You're good and buzzed.”

“I haven't had hardly anything,” Harry protested.

“You kicked off the night with a shot and a half of one-ninety proof and you've never even had shots before; it's a minor miracle you're coherent,” Scott said wryly. “Honestly, I'm impressed, considering how skinny you are.”

“Hey, I've been working out,” Harry shot back. “Now give me another.”

“No.”

“You gave Lila another.”

“Come back when you're veteran CC and not a para-baseline kid with no drinking experience and we'll talk.”

“Just give me another.”

“No.”

Harry stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. “…Can you move out of the way, then?”

“Congratulations, you've won this bottle of water,” Scott said, holding it out towards Harry.

“You're really not giving me more?” Harry said plaintively, dimly aware he was being a bit childish.

“Them's the breaks, son. You finish that bottle of water and maybe, _maybe_ , we'll put something else in your cup. Then you're on sabbatical until Kylie's bedtime.”

“And then I can try whatever I want?”

“We'll see. Now go drink that water and prop your girlfriend up.”

Harry turned to see that Ginny was leaning heavily against one of the worktops. “Oh.”

“Yeah. That's what happens when you weigh a hundred pounds.”

Harry went over to Ginny, suddenly more aware of his body. He didn't _feel_ drunk… Still, it did seem like he had to concentrate on walking, which was something he usually did without thinking about it at all. So perhaps Scott was on to something.

Ginny was clearly feeling the effects. Her eyes were bright and her face was flushed. Harry had been worried when he'd seen the way she was leaning on the worktop, but she didn't look like she was going to be sick. She looked sort of exuberant.

“Harry!” she said when he took her arm. She turned and leaned into him instead. “I think this is really working, I think so. 'S'fuckin' hot in here.”

Harry suddenly understood exactly why Scott hadn't given him another drink. “Split this with me,” he said, opening the bottle of water.

“Yeah, what is it? Give it,” she said with interest.

“It's just water,” he said, handing it to her.

“Eh, what, why? That's boring,” she said, even as she took a swig.

“I know, but Scott said we have to drink it before we can have anything else.”

Ginny dropped the bottle from her lips a bit too quickly, slopping some of it out the top. “I've really got to pee.”

“All right, here, just set this down for now.” Harry took what little was left of her drink and placed it on the worktop.

“I'm off,” Ginny said with an odd amount of determination for someone simply going to use the loo.

Harry watched, somewhat worried, as she swayed towards the stairs. Fortunately, Lila intercepted her on the way and lent an arm on the way up. The older woman said something that made Ginny laugh loudly enough to startle Kylie, who dropped a bag of crisps.

Harry made an effort to finish the water, even though he didn't want to drink it. Apparently, Scott had thrown them right into the deep end at the start, which honestly wasn't surprising given that it was Scott.

It didn't take too long for everyone to tire of standing in the kitchen. About an hour later Harry was feeling a bit soberer, having steadily alternated between low-alcohol mixed drinks and water. He was comfortably ensconced on a spare mattress in Kylie's room, propped up by a pile of pillows with Ginny snuggled into his side. Harry was a little hazy on when it had happened, but at some point, Sophie had acquired a television (she seemed quite good at getting things cheaply). She had placed it in Kylie's room and had slowly been building a collection of VHS tapes for Kylie to view, giving the girl something to do besides read and practice magic.

After an excessively long and spirited discussion about what to watch, everyone had settled in on the bed and in various chairs or whatever else they could find. Kylie was front and centre, enraptured by the film. Sophie was also deeply involved in the adventures of the animated mermaid (and Harry sometimes saw her mouthing along with the songs; it seemed like an old favourite of hers). Lila sat next to her friend, offering the occasional muttered commentary into Sophie's ear, which Sophie seemed to be resolutely ignoring. Hermione and Ginny were also enjoying it (Harry thought Hermione had said something about having seen it before), while Ron seemed less interested in watching than he was in playing with Hermione's hair. Scott appeared to be sleeping, though it was hard to tell; he was shrouded in shadow in the far corner by the bed, feet propped up on the edge of the mattress, and the shifting colours of the television made it difficult to discern if his eyes were open.

Harry, for his part, was sort of enjoying the film but also thinking Scott might have the right idea. Alcohol, he was discovering, made him sleepy. He felt like a lizard on a hot rock, warmed from the inside, head to toe. The sound of the television was reminiscent of all the times he had fallen asleep beneath the window outside of the house on Privet Drive.

He thought he might rest his eyes, just for a moment.

The next thing he knew, he was blinking rapidly as something pushed on his shoulder, tilting him over. He righted himself and regained his bearings: he'd fallen asleep at some point and Ginny was shaking him awake.

“Come on, you,” she said, letting go of him. “Let's try that game Lila was talking about!”

She seemed at least moderately more sober, though Harry didn't miss the new drink she had in her hand. “Yeah, all right,” he agreed, getting dizzily to his feet. The room seemed to spin a bit, but not too bad. “Where at?”

“The drawing room.”

“All right,” he said again, stretching. “I'll be there in a minute; want to go to the kitchen, first.”

He made his slightly unsteady way down to the kitchen, being extra careful with the stairs as they seemed to almost fall out beneath him, giving him a sense of vertigo strong enough that he had to focus on the railing beneath his hand. He had no desire to fall. It would hurt, sure, but he knew he'd catch all kinds of shite if the others found out. Ron would never let him live it down.

In the kitchen, he found Scott and Kylie, whom Harry suspected was up past her bedtime by the grace of Scott, because it didn't seem like the sort of night that Sophie would let Grimmauld's youngest resident be out and about any longer than necessary. She was sharing a bag of crisps with Scott.

“Do you think I could be like Ariel?” Kylie was asking as Harry tottered into the room.

“What, a mermaid? Aren't real merpeople actually kind of gross in this universe?” Scott said.

“No, not half a fish. Just… like her.”

“Ah. You mean in spirit.” Scott brushed some crumbs off his fingers. “I'd say you're already 'wandering free', relatively speaking. There are some other parallels we could draw. Sometimes it's good to see yourself in a story.”

“I don't have a prince,” Kylie said. She didn't sound upset about it, just sort of matter-of-fact.

“Well, some people might say she left the ocean for a dude. But she didn't; not really. She wanted to leave long before she saved his soggy rear end. Remember all that crap she collected? She just wanted to be different. She wanted a new way of life. And that's okay. The ocean was good enough for the rest of them, and that's okay, too. Some people just don't belong where they're from.”

“Like us?” Kylie said very quietly.

“Like you and me, Kylie. Born to be wild,” Scott told her, snagging another crisp from the bag.

Harry surveyed the drinks still set out on the table. He didn't know what he was looking for, exactly. Preferably something he hadn't tried already. He reached for a bottle that didn't look familiar.

“Man, if you don't stop mixing your liquors, you're going set up permanent residence in the bathroom for the rest of tonight and probably most of tomorrow,” Scott said to him.

Harry let his hand drop. “What would you suggest?”

“I suggest you go upstairs and play with the others without trying to pre-game. So get the f… hel— heck out of here.”

Harry was too pissed to come up with any sort of suitable retort. “All right,” he said numbly, pivoting unsteadily on his heel and preparing himself to ascend the staircase.

“He's so much more pliable like this,” Scott mused to Kylie as Harry tottered away. “But don't drink, okay?”

“It's gross,” Kylie said.

“Yeah, you get it.”

Harry made it up to the first landing and then paused for a moment to regain his bearings. Going up the stairs was embarrassingly difficult. He had the balance of a bloody toddler. Going down hadn't been this bad, had it? He'd woken up feeling fairly refreshed and then the feeling just evaporated. He got about halfway up the next set and then realized, even as he did it, that he'd put his foot down on the lip of the stair and it was sliding out from underneath him and he was about to leave the imprint of his face in the dust (or at least he would have if Sophie hadn't cleaned up all the usual dust). He was saved by a hand suddenly catching him under his right arm.

“You're welcome,” Lila said when he just stared at her dumbly for a moment.

“Uh, yeah, cheers,” Harry mumbled, trying not to lean into her.

She let go of him carefully and then stayed close behind him as he made his way up the remaining steps, which was sort of humiliating, but also probably necessary.

“I should take some pictures,” Lila mused, watching him.

“Don't even joke about it,” Harry muttered. He made it up to the landing and strode away from her as steadily as he was able.

Ginny and Ron were both in the drawing room, as Harry had expected, but he was surprised to see Hermione was also there. The game, whatever it was, didn't seem like her sort of thing.

She noticed his look and returned it levelly. “What? I'm not allowed to play?”

“Didn't say that,” Harry pointed out.

“You didn't have to. I'd like to watch, at least.”

“Yeah, I mean, if you want.” Harry observed the plastic cups and the bottle of wine that were on the short table. “I'm not sure any of us actually know how to play this.”

“It's like, you throw the coin, and then you have to drink, right?” Ginny supposed. “Isn't that what Lila said?”

“You talked to her, not me,” Harry replied.

“I don't get it. The only reason to play is to drink, so why not just drink it and save the spare change?” Ron opined.

“No, come on, it's fun!” Ginny said, pulling some cups off their stack and setting them down. “I bet it is, you'll see.”

They really didn't know what they were doing, but it was decided that they would toss coins from the doorway and whoever missed had to take a drink. They quickly discovered that the doorway was too far away; Ginny's Chaser skills translated just well enough that she was the only person able to make the throw with any regularity, leaving Harry and Ron to drink the lion's share of the wine, which in turn left Ginny as an increasingly sober victim of her own success.

“When do I get to drink?” she complained, another Sickle plopping into the wine.

“You should have specified underhand throws only,” Hermione said from the side-lines.

That sounded like a good change to the rules, Harry thought. Problem was, the wine bottle was almost empty. They weren't exactly measuring out how much of a 'drink' a loser had to take, resulting in anything from a gulp to pretty much an entire cup. Harry was feeling pretty buzzed again, but it lacked the dizzying edge of before. The wine didn't hit nearly as hard as whatever Scott had given to him to start with.

He was finding, more than anything, he just wanted to sit down. “Let's have a sit down,” he suggested.

“Best bloody idea I've heard all night,” Ron yawned.

They all sat on the sofas, exhausted and tipsy. There was some half-hearted attempt at holding a drunken conversation but it sort of petered out within about half an hour. Harry was sitting there, legs up on the cushions and Ginny's head on his chest, and then the next thing he knew he was blinking up at the ceiling, lying on his back on the floor.

He sat up, head swimming. Ginny was asleep, face hidden behind a red curtain of hair, and he could only assume she had somehow knocked him off the settee. Ron and Hermione were gone; probably retired to their room, Harry guessed. That just left him, then. He was still a bit drunk and he didn't think he could sleep where he was, if at all. He found a half-full glass of whiskey sitting on the end table. He wasn't sure whose it was (maybe his, he couldn't remember), but he snagged it anyway. No point in letting it go to waste.

He slowly got to his feet and made his very dizzy, gradual way down the stairs as he sipped at his drink, having the vague intent to see if anyone was still in the kitchen. It also gave him a little time to reflect, which hadn't been his plan, but, well, the whole night hadn't exactly aligned with his expectations.

He had thought… Well, he wasn't sure what he had thought. Maybe that it would be more like one of those films about university: a little raucous, a bit rude, but all in good fun. In retrospect, that might have been asking too much of everyone involved. It wasn't as if they were at school any more. Things were, they… were dark, usually. They had just come back from a mission in which none of them had been harmed, but some innocent people had been hurt and some not-so-innocent (he hoped) people had died. The alcohol was supposed to lift that weight, but he supposed it didn't always work like that. Not for him, it seemed.

It was just that he knew he had such a tendency to be morose that he had thought maybe alcohol would change things. Maybe he could feel better, or at least stop thinking so bloody much. Instead, here he was, drunk and stuck in his own head again. His thoughts careened more randomly than usual and they were slippery, hard to hold, but other than that it wasn't much different from any other post-mission night.

It wasn't who they were, he realized. Not now, or not any more. Maybe again, someday. Hermione had no desire to be drunk, Ron and Ginny had both quickly succumbed to liquor's drowsy effects, Lila seemed immune to inebriation, at least at the dosage she had consumed, and Scott and Sophie had both abstained. Less of a free for all, more of a failed experiment. He honestly couldn't say he'd had a better time than he would have with his friends if he'd been sober. It wasn't necessarily worse, either, just… different. He'd enjoyed the social aspect. He didn't need to get drunk to do that. If there was a next time, he thought he'd prefer to stop before he was fully pissed. Right around the point after his first shot; that had been pleasant, a gentle buzz.

This wasn't quite so pleasant. The room was spinning and his head seemed attuned to that false sense of motion. His stomach and throat burned and his limbs, lips and nose felt numb, like they weren't quite there anymore. He didn't think he was totally munted, though. He was aware of his state and didn't feel sick. Not yet, anyway.

If half of them hadn't been so bent on drinking like they knew what they were doing, they'd probably all still be together, watching Muggle movies or just talking. But some of that had happened regardless, so it wasn't as if the night were a total loss. Having reached the kitchen and found it deserted, Harry sat his glass of whiskey away on the table and tottered over towards the tap. Locating an empty glass that he could only assume was clean, he filled it with water and sat down. He'd had enough.

As he sat there, sipping the tepid water, he grimaced when another thought occurred to him. Scott had been right: heavy drinking wasn't Harry's thing. Harry had been grateful on plenty of occasions to receive Scott's insight, but he still hated it sometimes when the Kharadjai read him so well. He didn't like feeling that predictable.

Think of the devil. Scott came down into the kitchen; when he spotted Harry, he veered towards the table and sat down in the chair opposite. Harry nodded unsteadily by way of greeting.

Scott spread his hands. “So: was it everything you wanted?” he asked.

Harry wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He said nothing, taking another short drink.

That was still answer enough for Scott, who smirked as if Harry had admitted something. Which he sort of had, he supposed. Still. Scott could stuff it.

“Have to say, I'm impressed you're still conscious,” Scott remarked. “You're the last man standing.”

Harry didn't think it was much of an accomplishment, really. He opened his mouth to say, 'Just stubborn, I suppose', and what came out was a hoarse mishmash of syllables as he stubbed his tongue on every word. He quickly stopped and took another sip of his water.

Scott's mouth turned down dubiously. “You, uh, wanna back up and take another run at that?”

Harry favoured him with a drunken glare. “Jus' stubborn, I suppose,” he mumbled with great concentration.

“Yeah, no 'supposing' about it.” Scott pointed to the glass of whiskey. “Do I need to confiscate this?”

“I'm all right.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Looking down at the glass, Harry was struck by a whimsical thought. “Could you kill me with it?”

“What?”

“The glass. 'Cause that's what you can do, isn't it, kill people with anything. Like a glass, or a…” Harry started to turn his head, only to discover that wasn't the best idea. “…glass,” he finished, since he had another one in his hand.

Scott leaned back in his seat. “What is it with Primes and always wanting to know what I could kill them with? It's like some morbid party game. I'm serious, I get asked this shit _all_ the time. 'Could you kill me with this?' 'Could you kill me with that?' 'Could you kill me with a toothpick, or an umbrella, or a box of cereal?'”

“Could you?” Harry needled him.

“No, yes, no, in that order.”

“What kind of super soldier can't kill someone with a box of cereal?”

Scott's eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You know, you're not nearly as drunk as you look.”

It was true. Harry's brain was climbing further out of the fog with every passing minute. “I'm just saying.”

Scott sighed and looked upwards. “…Okay, I guess I could force feed it to you until you choked. But that seems like a real pain the ass.”

“Well, I'd hate to inconvenience you whilst I was dying.”

“No you wouldn't.” Scott glanced at the stairwell. “Finish another glass of water and then get to bed. The sooner you wake up, the sooner you can power through your hangover.”

“I thought that's why I've been drinking this,” Harry said, raising his water glass.

“That'll take the edge off, but you're a first timer. Don't expect any miracles.”

Harry stared down into his glass. The water was dark in the dim kitchen, and he could see his reflection inside the cup, staring back up at him. It made him think of the cot, and the water. “What do you think is next?” he asked the other man.

“A hangover. Like I just said.”

“That's not what I—”

“I know what you meant. We'll talk business later, the point of all this was to _not_ do that.”

They both turned when the sound of shoes on the kitchen steps drew their attention. Lila came down into the kitchen, an empty glass in one hand. She strolled over and set it into the sink, before joining them at the table.

“That's enough for me,” she said with finality. Which, how much had she even had? Harry hadn't been keeping track (and hadn't even seen her for a good portion of the evening), but she'd had something in her cup every time he had seen her. It seemed like she had been steadily drinking all night. She didn't appear to be drunk at all.

“Thanks for coming down here to keep us informed,” Scott said.

“Sounds like someone's cranky after watching everyone else drink,” Lila said to Harry.

Harry actually didn't think Scott cared much, if at all. But he played along anyway. “Guess he's a bit shit at partying,” he said.

“Is that true, Scott? Are you a, 'bit shit'?” Lila repeated with relish, exaggerating the syllables.

“You know, this is the second time I've invited you to a party during this integration, and the second time I've deeply regretted it,” Scott mused. “And yet, I've learned nothing.”

Lila opened her mouth for another retort and Harry started settling in, content to watch them verbally spar whilst he sobered up. Whatever comment Lila had planned on making was stalled, however, when there was yet another set of footsteps.  
  
It was Sophie, her hair a curly, sleep-tangled mess and her eyes narrowed with displeasure. “Why are you still awake?!” she hissed. “I got up to use the restroom and there was Kylie trying to sneak down here because she heard you talking! You should be in bed! Go to sleep!”

When no one responded right away, she spun on her heel and stormed back up the stairs.

“…I mean, she's not wrong,” Scott said into the silence.

Lila stretched, and then stood. “I'm staying here tonight. Tomorrow, I'll talk to Lupin about breaking Riddle's hold on the werewolves. What's your plan?”

“The snake is our next headache. Right now, we're working on Harry's problem,” Scott said.

“Let me know if you move on the snake. That has to shake something loose.”

“Hence the headache. We don't know what we're going to do about that.”

Harry didn't really want to think about it, at least not until he was sober. As intractable an issue as his own Horcrux has seemed, the snake was worse. How the bloody hell were they ever going to kill it without Riddle knowing? It didn't seem possible. He took another gulp of his water and pushed the thought aside. No doubt he'd be doing plenty of thinking on it, later.

With Lila leaving and Scott pushing his chair back to do the same, Harry reckoned it was about time for him to try and sleep. Wasn't drinking supposed to make you sleep, anyway? He was tired, but he didn't feel like he could fall asleep. It felt like the sort of tiredness that would leave him lying there, staring up into the dark, trapped with his own thoughts. He'd had too many nights like that.

“I don't think we'll get much done tomorrow with half of us hungover,” Scott supposed. “Let's plan on a meeting sometime in the next forty-eight. We need to start laying the groundwork for whatever Hermione comes up with.”

Harry wished there weren't so much pressure on her, but, as had always been the case, if anyone was going to suss out a solution, it was her. “Yeah, sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Hey,” Scott said as Harry started to walk away. Harry stopped and turned back. “I know it wasn't what you expected, but this was pretty all right for where we are. Sometimes you have to take a step back.”

Harry shrugged listlessly. “I just thought it'd be more… I don't know, loud?”

Scott smiled slightly. “Maybe when we win.”

Harry ascended the stairs with somewhat better ease than before, thinking that was a nice sentiment to go to bed on.

He made his way down the hall to his bedroom, only to eventually recall that Ginny was still asleep in the Drawing Room. He changed course and found her there, lightly snoring with her entire head hidden beneath her tangled red locks. It made him wish he had a camera. He stood there for a moment, trying to gauge how sober and steady he really was. Deciding that he wasn’t swaying all _that_ much, he scooped Ginny up and carried her, slowly, back to their bedroom.

He set her down on the mattress and then lay beside her, the ceiling a black void above him. For once, he thought of nothing — nothing at all. His thoughts moved around his head like vapor, failing to cohere into anything. Gradually, his eyelids grew heavier, and he slipped into sleep so suddenly he never crawled beneath the covers.


	41. Age of Anxiety

**41**  

**Age of Anxiety**

\---

_“Component, Solidary, and Symbiotic._  
_Taken together, the thread types which_  
_are considered the bedrock of Spencerian_  
_Shaperate, the tools with which the shape_  
_may be unravelled and then studied. Each_  
_has many coexisting variables, and each_  
_has many simultaneous states. This you  
_ _already know._

_It is easy to believe that with classification_  
_comes understanding. Easy, and untrue._  
_Over the length of this course, you will_  
_discover that classification provides the_  
_illusion of knowledge. If you learn one_  
_thing from me in the next three years, make_  
_it this: Do not ever delude yourself into_  
_thinking you have divined the shape’s_  
_purpose in totality. In touching infinity,_  
_you will find yourself to be **profoundly  
**_ _limited.”_

—Opening lecture by Dr. Emil Xiang, Advanced Shaperate 202

\---

When Harry awoke, his mouth felt like a desert and tasted like death. More pressingly, he had to urinate so badly he was genuinely concerned his bladder was going to rupture.

He jumped to his feet; or, rather, he attempted to jump to his feet. The second his soles touched the floor it seemed to lurch beneath them and he gracelessly slumped forward to crash face first into the dresser table. The mirror rattled loudly in protest as he impacted. He barely felt it. His need to use the loo was all consuming.

When he reached the toilet after what felt like an eternity of lurching down the hallway, the relief was so intense it bordered on holy. He stood in front of the bowl and shivered as every muscle in his body went limp with utter joy. Then he continued to stand there for what struck him as a ridiculous amount of time as he released a stream that seemed as eternal as the Thames.

Finally finished, he tottered over to the mirror to take in the damage. To his surprise, he looked fairly normal. A bit pale, yeah, but nothing too serious. He’d expected far worse. His head hurt and he was sort of dizzy and he didn’t think he could eat much, but all together it wasn’t so bad. Drinking all that water must have worked.

He made the easy decision to skip breakfast as he washed his hands; he reckoned he’d be hungry enough by lunch to overcome the undercurrent of nausea that accompanied his every movement. He drank a little of the tepid water from the tap and then slowly proceeded down the dark halls of Grimmauld, not really having a destination in mind. He just didn’t think he could go back to sleep yet.

It must have been early in the day, as the house was mostly still. There was a light coming from the training room. Harry wobbled his way over to the door to see who else was up in the dark hours of the morning.

“And… go!” Sophie said.

 _“Expelliarmus!”_ Kylie cast at the training dummy, causing the wooden spindle taped to its arm to fly off and clatter across the floor

Sophie retrieved the spindle and taped it back to the arm of the dummy. “Okay, now let’s try it with a boost.” She went back to Kylie and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“Now?” Kylie said, looking back at Sophie.

“Whenever you feel ready.”

Kylie scrunched up her face in concentration. _“Expelliarmus!”_

When the spell hit the dummy for the second time there was a tremendous noise as it flew backwards to crash into the wall, dust and pillow feathers billowing outward. The spindle went whirling across the room with considerable force and flew out the doorway. Normally, Harry would have utilised his Quidditch-tuned reflexes to duck out of the way. But he was really hungover, so instead he watched dumbly as the spindle whipped through the air and smacked him straight in the face.

“Ow,” he said torpidly as the wood bounced off his forehead.

“Oh, geez. Harry!” Sophie sighed. She approached and put her hands on either side of his head, stretching the skin of his forehead with her thumbs. “Now you’re going to bruise.”

He frowned and leaned back until she released him. He wasn’t a bloody child; a bit of wood to the forehead wasn’t going to matter. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you are,” she said more testily, eyeing him. “You are hungover.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

Sophie’s lips pursed in a very disapproving manner. “So _now_ you see what I was talking about.”

“It’s not so bad,” he lied as another wave of nausea washed over him.

“You’re sick. I can tell. I know,” Sophie retorted. “You should go back to bed. But this is what you get! …But try to feel better.”

Her innate empathy was clearly at war with her need to say ‘I told you so’. “What were you just working on?” Harry asked her, refusing to be ordered off to bed like a toddler.

“I’m giving Kylie a little boost for her spells,” Sophie said, going back over to the girl. “It’s good practice, for both of us.”

“Could you try it with me?” Harry was keen on the idea. With Sophie providing some extra kick, Harry’s spells might hit wicked hard.

“I could, once you’re done being sick,” Sophie said, pointedly turning her back on him.

Harry honestly wasn’t feeling well enough to push the issue. “Yeah, all right. I’m going to have a lie in,” he said.

“Good.”

“I hope you get better, Harry,” Kylie said as he turned to leave.

“Er, thanks,” he said, still unused to being addressed by her. It seemed not so long ago that she wasn’t saying anything at all.

“Drink some water!” Sophie called after him.

He trudged his way up the stairs (which felt more endless by the second) and stopped by the loo once more to splash some cold water on his face. It helped a bit, if not as much as he’d like. He drank from the tap until he thought he might just expel it all back into the sink. The dark sanctuary of his room beckoned him, and he collapsed onto the mattress and just lay there, trying to breathe evenly and stop the room from spinning around him. It took a long time, but he eventually fell asleep.

The next time he awoke was easier. He had to pee again, but the pounding in his head wasn’t so fierce, and the ground was steadier beneath his feet. His thirst had returned with a vengeance, though. After relieving himself, he was drawn to voices emanating from the drawing room. His curiosity temporarily overcame his thirst, and he diverted his path.

He entered the room to see Ron laughing weakly on the settee whilst holding his head, as if it might break if he shook it too hard. Scott was in the armchair.

“Ow, owww…” Ron winced, sinking down farther onto his side.

“This is not okay, dude,” Scott was saying. “If I could make myself get up, I'd hit you, and not gently.”

“So I'm safe, then,” Ron chortled from his prone position.

“What are you talking—” Harry discovered exactly what they were talking about when the smell wafted over him. “Oh.”

“This fucker melted a hole in his pants, and probably the loveseat,” Scott accused. “I think I just got pink eye straight from his asshole.”

“C'mon, it's not _that_ bad,” Ron said.

Harry did not agree, even though the stench was beginning to dissipate. “That's raw, mate. That's like Seamus level.”

“You probably saved Sophie the trouble of stripping the paint off the walls,” Scott said, dropping his shirt from where he'd had it over his mouth and nose.

“What about the paint?” Sophie said, having wandered in.

“You just missed Ron's ass leaving this mortal coil,” Scott told her.

“You bought the drinks, mate, so that’s on you,” Ron said, pointing limply in Scott’s direction with one arm over his eyes.

“No, you do _not_ get to lay that at my feet. We are at war, so that was a war crime. Next Nuremburg, you are front and centre.”

“I don't think Ron tooting is quite as bad as racial genocide,” Sophie said sternly, apparently having caught on (or caught the remnants).

“No, but it's a close second.”

“Scott!”

“Come on, you _know_ I’m not serious.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. But you could be a little more sensitive, if only because I'm Jewish.”

“Okay, first off: yeah, you're a Jew, but you're Jewish Catholic, so when you see a synagogue burning you're probably a little conflicted—”

**_“Scott.”_ **

“—and secondly, Ron didn't 'toot', he prolapsed his fuckin' anus right into the couch and released what they probably breathe in Hell.”

“Oh, gross, you… shut up!” Sophie commanded him.

“Hey, _I_ didn’t do it.”

Harry would have sat down with them, but his parched mouth was demanding liquid. “Are we still having a meeting tonight?” he asked as he backed away to the door.

“No,” Ron groaned, arm still over his eyes.

“Probably,” Scott countered. “Hermione has some things to say, I know that much.”

“Can we have it in here? Like this?” Ron said plaintively.

“I think one ecological disaster in here is enough.”

“All right, I suppose we’ll wait and see,” Harry said, leaving.

Down in the kitchen he found Hermione sitting at the table with an empty bowl of cereal to her right and a huge book splayed open in front of her. She didn’t look up when he came in and he didn’t bother trying to interrupt her. Ginny was also seated at the table with a glass of water; her head was pillowed on her folded arms, which probably wasn’t a good sign.

“You alive?” he asked her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Fucking hell, not for much longer,” she groaned into the table. “Why’d you let me drink all that?”

“ _Let_ you?” he repeated incredulously.

“Whatever,” she grumbled, reaching out blindly for her glass of water and nearly knocking it over. “It’s my own bloody fault, blah blah blah.”

“Yeah, it is,” he laughed.

“Bollocks,” she mumbled wanly into her glass, sipping at it unenthusiastically.

He did feel a bit bad for her. It wasn’t like he was in perfect shape, either. “Try to drink all of that. It’s supposed to help, I think,” he told her.

“Yeah, that’s what Sophie said. I’m dehydrated, or whatever.” Ginny put her head back down on the table. “Carry me back to bed?”

Harry had procured his own glass of water and already had to refill it. With his thirst soothed, he reckoned she might have the right idea. “Yeah, all right.”

Ginny perked up. “What, really? Even with all the stairs?”

“You think I can’t?” Harry said, slightly offended. He’d been working out, after all.

She leaned back and lifted her legs slightly, ready to be picked up. “Go on, then. Impress me.”

He downed the rest of his second glass and then scooped her up. She barely weighed a thing, small as she was.

“Do be awake this evening for our meeting!” Hermione called after them as they left.

“God, no,” Ginny moaned, head lolling back limply over Harry’s arm. “Let me sleep forever.”

“You’ll feel better tonight,” Harry predicted.

As it turned out, he was partially right. That night, all who had chosen to imbibe at the party were doing better, but not fully recovered. Ron had regained most of his colouring but still nursed a headache and Ginny remained tired and listless. Harry felt all right, give or take the occasional bout of nausea.

The mood around the table wasn’t quite as solemn as usual, undercut by the clear state of drink-related suffering so many of the attendants displayed. And perhaps their recent festivities had supplied a form of release for all the stress they’d been dealing with. Harry was still glad to get back to business, though. Well, ‘glad’ wasn’t really the word. It was just that every step they took was one step closer to the end of all this, whatever that might be.

Hermione took charge of the meeting. “I know we’ve all been considering where to go from here,” she began. “The snake is still a concern, and of course we’ll need to destroy the cup once we’ve prepared. For the time being, I’d like to focus on our other issue, which I believe I have a solution for.”

Harry leaned forward, half eager and half dreading her solution and whatever it might entail.

“For obvious reasons, we can’t deal with Harry’s problem in our usual way…” she said delicately. “But I think I’ve fashioned a sort of workaround. We’re going to need the phylactery.” She held up the box containing Ginny’s gift. “Riddle created the Horcrux in Harry by mistake, so it isn’t fully complete.”

“There are varying states of Horcrux?” Scott interjected.

“Well, there aren’t intended to be. But he didn’t perform the ritual to create the Horcrux in Harry. It isn’t something you do on a whim, there’s a process involved. And, no, I won’t go into it. It’s horrible. So, Harry isn’t a Horcrux at all. There isn’t another word for what’s in him, not that I know of. I can’t find any mention of anyone ever creating a Horcrux by accident; it’s a very deliberate thing.”

“He did put a lot of planning into his others,” Harry mused.

“Yes, he did. And he did it so many times that he lost a sliver of himself without even knowing it, which is unprecedented.”

“We seem to have a lot of unprecedented questions,” Scott said dryly.

“Many of which were created by you,” Hermione said. “At least in this case we know why Harry has always been himself.”

Harry had to agree, self-serving though it might be. Logic dictated that Riddle wouldn’t have been working against himself with quite so much dedication.

“The Horcrux is tied to Harry, but he himself is not a Horcrux. The tricky part was determining how to approach such a situation. Fortunately, we have a point of comparison in the phylactery. It contains a part of Harry and is tied to him, but he is not the phylactery. We can use that.”

“To do what?” Ginny said impatiently, looking like she wanted her gift back (Harry had the feeling she wasn’t going to get it back).

“My belief is that the piece of Riddle’s soul is, um, _vestigial_ enough that it can be moved, if that makes sense. Provided the proper conduit.”

Ron’s brow furrowed. “So… we’re going to make the blood into a Horcrux?”

“Yes!” Hermione said, obviously pleased someone had caught on. “Sort of! It won’t be a real Horcrux and we certainly won’t be performing the Horcrux ritual.” She pushed one of the books she had on the table forward. “I’ve found instructions on how to create a phylactery in these blood magic books. What we’ll do is combine that ritual with select parts of the one Riddle did in the graveyard. It’ll be a bit like a siphon. The soul is clinging to Harry because it has nowhere else to go, and if we give it a new path, gravity will do the rest. So to speak.”

“Hang on. Which parts of the graveyard ritual?” Harry asked.

“Oh! No, no, nothing like that, Harry. The part we need is the one which tied you to Riddle. We’re already halfway there with the phylactery, we just need to create a magical conduit attractive to the Horcrux, something so closely tied to you that the difference is negligible. We’ll need to do this somewhere you have strong history.”

That complicated matters. “Most of those places we can’t go, and I don’t think Grimmauld will do it,” Harry said.

“No, I agree. Scott suggested using the cottage in the Hollow, specifically the cot, but returning there would be very risky, especially as I’m not even sure that would work; you only spent a year of your life there, after all. Hogwarts is even more dangerous, though any number of places there would be ideal.”

“Our place is right out,” Ginny said.

“Yeah. Don’t fancy our chances getting to The Burrow again,” Ron concurred.

“I think the Dursleys’ place is going to be our best bet,” Hermione said to Harry. “I know your memories of it are mixed, to say the least, but that’s fine. What matters is that it’s a place very intrinsic to your self.”

Harry couldn’t say he liked the thought of going back. He also didn’t have another idea. He’d spent his life after his eleventh birthday alternating between Privet Drive, Hogwarts and The Burrow. “Scott, what do you think the odds are it’s being watched?”

“High. But probably by a token force, if any. I’d be surprised if it’s more than one or two people, in shifts,” Scott said. “If they’re overtasked it might even be some spell alarms.”

“So we go in the Muggle way,” Ginny said. “Right? We can have a look first.”

“Not so much ‘we’, but, yeah. A lot of planning to do.”

“Good, all of you can get to work on that whilst Sophie and I finish some of the finer details for the ritual,” Hermione said.

“I want a better way for everyone to get out this time, something more fool proof,” Scott added. “I’m thinking Portkeys.”

“It wouldn’t hurt, but they aren’t ‘fool proof’,” Hermione warned. “There are ways to stop Portkey use, just like Apparition.”

“It’s just another tool. If they counter one, I’d like us to have another.”

“Fair point. I’ll get to those once I have a chance.” Hermione’s fingers twitched slightly, as if they were grasping for a quill that wasn’t there. “I should make a list…”

“When are we going to kill the Horcrux we’ve got?” Ginny wanted to know.

“We should talk about it,” Hermione said. “It’s my feeling that Lila should be here for that, I don’t know about the rest of you?”

“Yeah, I want everyone on deck for that. Lil should be here,” Scott agreed. “Let’s avoid any repeats.”

The more Kharadjai around to suppress the Horcrux, the better, as far as Harry was concerned. “Keep it locked up, then. It’s not going anywhere,” he said.

The meeting gradually devolved into small talk after that as they ate the food left over from the party. It was a bit difficult to enjoy the food with his stomach still reacting to the damage he had done the night before, but Harry ate what little he could and tried to relax without relaxing too much, as he reckoned he might just fall asleep again.

“Did we forget anything?” Hermione said. “I know Lila has plans to meet with some of the Order, but we’ll have to wait to hear from her.”

“Oh! We’ve got something,” Ginny said, nudging Harry’s side.

Harry looked at her blankly. “We do?”

“You know, that bloke we overheard, in the Alley. Remember? The Death Eater who was on to Scott?”

Scott — who had clearly been miles away, staring at some distant point near the tap — snapped back to attention. “Who the what now?”

“Right, yeah,” Harry said. “Before we left the Alley we managed to eavesdrop in on some of the Death Eaters in charge.”

Scott’s interest was immediately and fully captured, as Harry thought it might be. “What happened?”

“So, we made it back to the pub, but then Harry had this idea to listen in,” Ginny detailed. “We got inside and there were a few Death Eaters sort of sitting around and Malfoy’s dad was there, for a second, and he was getting all narky with this other Death Eater, this big bloke who was Bulgarian or something.”

“What makes you say that?” Scott interrupted.

“His accent. I suppose he sounded a bit like Viktor,” Harry said.

“You’re sure it was Bulgarian?”

“Er…” Harry looked to Ginny, who appeared just as uncertain as he was. “I wouldn’t bet any money on it…”

“But it was something Slavic.”

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Harry said, and Ginny also nodded.

“Riddle’s been pulling people in from all over,” Scott observed. “In the Alley I think I heard one guy swearing in Swahili.”

“You speak Swahili?” Hermione said, looking surprised.

“Only the swears.”

“Anyway, he was banging on about how you’d dodged him a couple times already, and he knew you were going to escape again,” Ginny continued. “He also reckoned you were working with Harry, though I guess Snape said it was the Order. That’s what that other Death Eater said, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, something about Snape saying it wasn’t me who rescued Kylie,” Harry confirmed. “The bald bloke was really interested in you, Scott. He was talking about the guns you use, training, that sort of stuff. He said you were a freedom fighter.”

Scott shrugged slightly, eyes intent with thought. “Well, sort of.”

Hermione must have divined his train of thought, because she said, “If this person is familiar with your Muggle tactics, that could explain the higher level of enemy organization we saw at the Hollow.”

“And why we’ve seen less of it since, after it didn’t work,” Scott reflected. “That’s the kind of short-sighted idiocy I’d expect from Riddle’s command structure.”

“He’s probably been undermined further by your most recent escape,” Hermione added.

“Maybe. I don’t know if anyone else could have done better in that weather with those troops.”

“Riddle won’t care,” Harry scoffed. Only Dumbledore really knew Tom Riddle, but Harry knew enough.

“I think you’re right,” Hermione agreed. “He’s the sort to demand results and see even justifiable failure as an ‘excuse’.”

“Maybe our Eastern European opponent won’t be our problem anymore,” Scott said. “You know, there’s something to be said for an enemy that destroys itself.”

“I don’t think any nation under Riddle has much chance at longevity. Though, if he gets to that point, there won’t be any of us around to see the collapse,” Hermione said solemnly.

Scott smiled humourlessly. “I know preying on the Muggles is kind of his thing, but if he sends his little dictatorship to war it won’t be too long before the only thing inhabiting these isles is cesium-137.”

Harry tuned them out for a minute — he didn’t much care for the topic, anyway — and turned to Ginny. “I dunno, what do you think about that Death Eater? Did he seem worried to you?”

“What, about getting in trouble?” Ginny’s mouth scrunched in thought, which was adorable and distracting. Harry reminded himself that he was trying to talk to her, not snog her. Yet. “…No, not really. He even said Lucius didn’t have any stones, right to his pointy face.”

“Yeah, that’s how I remember it. He wasn’t worried at all.”

“I suppose he’s really brave. Or really stupid. Kind of like you,” Ginny said, poking Harry playfully in the chest.

“I’m not the only Gryffindor here,” he retorted.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Like any of us can compete with the Chosen One.”

Harry already hated being called that, but he _really_ hated it coming out of her mouth. At least now he was armed with a response. “I’m not a ‘Chosen One’. Ask Scott, he’ll tell you. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Ginny said, bright brown eyes dancing with amusement. “Are you or aren’t you?”

“I… It’s complicated. We had a whole talk about it and he sort of went on, like he does, and… Well, it mostly made sense. I’m sort of chosen, but not in special way, or, like, actually picked, the way you or I would pick something. It’s like how water ‘chooses’ where to run, something like that. There’s no fate, just paths.”

She considered that for a moment. “Doesn’t really change things, though, does it?”

Harry still preferred the distinction. “It’s just nice to know.”

“You’re still just Harry. You know that, yeah? That’s the part I like. The rest is rubbish,” she said, one hand curling around the back of his neck with gentle affection.

“So long as I’m your chosen one,” he said with a half-smile, and then winced when he realised how trite that had sounded. “Just… pretend I said something smooth, all right?”

She laughed delightedly. “As if! I’m writing that down later, you watch.”

She was so close and so beautiful and so full of life and Harry couldn’t do any of the things he wanted to do with her whilst everyone else was right there at the table. Instead, he reluctantly reverted to the original subject. “So why do you think that Death Eater wasn’t afraid of what Riddle would do? I reckon he had a reason… He seemed smart like that.”

“What was it he said about what Riddle wants?” Ginny frowned, dropping her hand as she tried to remember. Harry immediately missed its presence, and reached forward slightly to take it in his own. “He said something, like, it was what Riddle wanted, for them to fight. The way he was with Malfoy’s dad, I mean.”

It did make a very Dark Lord-ish sort of sense. Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said about tyrants. If Riddle’s minions fought with each other, they’d be too busy to challenge him. Seemed a bit stupid to encourage that kind of competition in his own ranks, Harry thought. But, then, Harry would probably make a pretty shit Dark Lord.

“Yeah, but it’s one thing to call Lucius a prick, and something else to let Scott escape,” Harry said.

“Let?” Scott interjected, breaking off his conversation with Hermione.

“You know what I mean.”

“If I were him, I’d expect a curse right up the arse for that,” Ron said.

“What if it wasn’t him at first?” Ginny theorised.

Scott must have twigged on to her meaning, because his head tilted contemplatively. “Go on.”

“Remember how they all just ran in there and got shot? That doesn’t seem so smart, not if they know a thing or two about Muggle fighting. So, what if the big stubbly bloke wasn’t in charge at first, what if he came in after?”

“They surround the bank, someone makes the call to attack, they get shot up, so they bring in the guy who might know how to deal with it,” Scott said, ticking off the hypothetical series of events on his fingers. “He gets there, gets organised, puts his people in the streets; but, he’s got holes punched through his lines, casualties everywhere, conflicting and outdated reports all up and down the Alley, it’s getting dark, and outside the window it’s a whiteout. By the time you run into him, he knows he’s not going to get me or Lil. But, he also knows someone else is more to blame than he is.”

“He doesn’t look good… But, he doesn’t look any worse,” Harry finished.

“He actually comes out ahead, if he plays his cards right. From the sound of it, he put everything together quick enough, he just came in too late in the game for it to matter. All he has to do is make a convincing case that he could have done the job if he hadn’t been cut out of the action,” Scott said.

“So we may not be rid of him, after all,” Hermione said soberly.

“We’ve been lucky, but not _that_ lucky.”

“Okay. Yep, hold on.” Sophie’s voice came from the stairs, drawing everyone’s attention. She walked into the kitchen with her mobile pressed to one ear and gestured at Scott. “He’s here. I’ll tell him.” Lowering the mobile, she said, “We’re going to let Kylie stay with Trevor for this mission again, right?”

“I don’t see why not,” Scott replied. “I know you’ll be here, but there’s no reason for her to sit around and worry when she can be with him.”

“Right, but Lil is saying there’s some sick people over at that safehouse and she thought maybe I could go take a look,” Sophie said.

Scott immediately nodded. “Take the opening. Let’s get the Order familiar with you, too, build a little trust.”

“That’s what I thought,” Sophie said, and then traipsed back up the stairs, still chatting with Lila.

Scott reached behind himself and picked up the duffel bag on the floor.

It was the de facto ‘map bag’, full of Muggle maps and some of Scott’s diagrams. He leafed through them for a moment before pulling out a large and detailed map of Surrey and some of the surrounding county. Harry had been thinking that Sophie would have to go shopping for a map more specific than the general ones Scott had of England, but Scott already had what he needed. Which made sense, now that Harry considered it. Of course Scott would have a map of Surrey. He probably had maps of Ottery St Catchpole and Hermione’s area, too.

“Little Whinging isn’t ideal,” Scott said, placing a finger on a road. “Here’s Privet Drive, but it’s not a thoroughfare. We got two ways in and out — make it to either end of the street, and then it’s five ways. There’s too many hedges to cut through yards with the car. Most houses have a fence, too. A lot of brick construction, a lot of hedges, a lot of high fences. Good cover, decent sightlines, too, especially street side. Not a good position to approach.”

“You think they’ll be waiting for us?” Hermione said, surprised.

“Probably not. They’d have to know we were coming, and they haven’t anticipated anything we’ve done yet.”

“It’s not as if we’re going to assault the place even if they are. If there’s an army present we’ll have to find somewhere else suitable.”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it. There are places we can go,” Scott said, pulling the map closer to his chair and looking down at it.

“Just so long as there aren’t any dragons. That one was enough.”

Having had his own close encounter with a dragon, Harry did not envy Hermione and Sophie their task of bypassing the one guarding the vault.

“We have dragons too, you know,” Scott said idly as he traced the roadways in Surrey.

“Do you?” Hermione said with interest. “Do they breathe fire, as well? Or did you mean something more like a lizard, like a komodo dragon?”

“No, more like yours. They don't breathe fire, but they do hoard treasure.”

Hermione blinked. “They hoard treasure?”

“Oh yeah, anything shiny. Plastic bags, broken mirrors, pipes and conduit. They guard it violently.”

“So it isn't treasure so much as it is rubbish,” Hermione concluded, looking a bit let down.

“Dragons are animals, and, as you might expect, aren't really up to date on market value.”

“But why do they collect shiny things?”

“No one's really sure. The most common theory is that it's a mating thing, like a display; any dragon fit enough to amass a pile of shiny garbage and defend it is fit enough to mate. It's an odd qualifier for procreation, but nature's given us stranger.”

“I don't think we humans can point any fingers when it comes to odd qualifiers for procreation,” Hermione said dryly.

“We can point all we want; they’re stupid animals, they don’t know what we’re pointing at.” Scott circled something on the map. “Harry, double check this.”

Harry got up and went around the table. Scott had circled a portion of Privet Drive, roughly where the Dursleys’ house was. “Yeah, that’s about right,” he said.

“No, that’s the old circle. This,” Scott tapped the map. “That’s the playground lot, right? Not this one?”

“Uh… Yeah. ‘Cause that’s the lot where Dudley lit off his fireworks.”

“I was ninety-nine percent sure. Just check when you can,” Scott advised as he made more notations.  
  
Harry had watched him work before, but it was still impressive. “You’ve done this a few times, huh?”

“Been in the army a long time, Harry. Joined as soon as I could.”

“You joined when you were my age?” Harry tried to imagine a teenaged Scott, eager to serve his country. He didn’t have to imagine all that hard since he had known a teenaged Scott. Still, he knew it wasn’t the same.

“When I was fifty,” Scott said absently, still scribbling.

 _“Fifty?”_ Ginny said in shock, while Hermione and Ron made noises of surprise.

“On Solas the minimum age is actually fifty-two, but I saved up and booked a flight to Eastervale Hub so I didn’t have to wait another two years. I was young, dumb and full of cum.” Scott tilted his head slightly in consideration. “Now I’m just the last two, so… progress.”

Given that Scott’s features had the ageless quality of a healthy man somewhere in midst of his twenties or thirties, Harry had to wonder just how old Scott was. He didn’t ask, though; Scott was becoming more intent on his planning by the second.

“Covering the whole neighbourhood with one car could be risky, someone might notice. That means either I have to change vehicles or one you needs to drive,” Scott said.

“I doubt the Death Eaters pay much attention to cars,” Hermione pointed out.

“We don’t know _what_ they do. Not anymore.”

“All right, Scott,” Hermione said, leaning back slightly, “whatever you think is best. I’m going to fetch Sophie and get started. You’ll let me know if I’m needed here?”

“Once I have something for you to go over,” Scott mumbled, tracing another road with his finger.

“You want me up there?” Ron asked her.

“If you don’t mind. I can always use your help,” Hermione told him with a grateful smile. “Um, Ginny, could I borrow you as well?”

Ginny looked a bit surprised, but stood up to go. Harry started to push himself away from the table when Hermione suddenly said, “No, that’s fine, Harry. Ron and Ginny will be all the help I need.”

Harry paused uncertainly. “Oh. Okay.”

“You should stay and plan with Scott, anyway,” Hermione said hurriedly, perhaps concerned for Harry’s feelings.

He had the sudden feeling of being outside his body, of looking at the situation with eyes other than his own; or maybe they were his own eyes, just from another time. Was this how it was? Ron and Hermione going off to take care of something else along with Ginny, Harry staying with the strange man who had butted into their lives? Just the three of them, no longer. Not for a while, now. For a split second, Harry longed for the simpler problems of earlier years, when it seemed there wasn’t anything he and Ron and Hermione couldn’t tackle so long as they were together.

Ron, noticing Harry’s frozen state, frowned slightly. “All right, Harry?”

Harry let out a quick breath, felt the past loosen its grip. Different didn’t mean worse. Things changed, and they changed with them. “Yeah, mate. You lot go on, we’ll hash this out. We’ll need everyone’s opinion after, anyway.”

Ginny still looked confused as to why Hermione required her presence. “Don’t let him plan anything where he gets to sacrifice himself, Scott,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I know how this dude thinks,” Scott replied.

Despite his annoyance, Harry found himself impressed. The two of them could hold a relatively civil conversation, now. That was certainly progress. “Right, Scott; break this down for me,” he said, leaning over the map again.

“Our enemy probably has sentries here or somewhere nearby. But it’s a public space, which means we can move through it if we’re careful,” Scott said. “We start by canvassing the subdivision on the outside circuit, and then move inward. Our biggest problem is possible identification if our car is seen moving up and down all the streets without purpose. So I’m thinking, we give ourselves a good reason to be there…”

***---~**~---***

Outside the window, the snow was thick on the ground. Glittering powder still adhered to the frame. Neville’s breath fanned against the glass, fogging it. He glanced at the clock again.

One in the afternoon. Just like the last time he looked.

It wasn’t that he was eager for the time to change, since that meant Luna would be leaving, but he was concerned. Her father was supposed to be coming to pick her up after her stay at Neville’s for the first half of the Christmas holiday.

Luna was perfectly capable of Apparating to her own home once beyond the wards around the Longbottom estate, but it wasn’t safe to travel alone — especially for her. The reprisals against the Gryffindors had been getting worse over the school year and Luna, despite her status as a Ravenclaw, had been the focus of the worst kind of attention. She thought it was because her father was stubbornly printing the truth about the Ministry despite the current political climate. Neville thought she was right. He also thought her relationship with him, and her friendship with Harry and those closest to him, had put a target on her back. Neville wasn’t exactly the Death Eaters’ favourite person, but he did come from a very old and very rich pure-blood wizarding family, so, at the very least, they seemed reluctant to kill him. He didn’t think Luna was afforded the same benefit, and he had been seriously considering taking Lila up on her offer and getting Luna out of Hogwarts while she was still in one piece.

Xenophilius was late, by almost a half hour. He must have often been late, given that Luna’s expression had remained serene up until about the twenty-five minute mark. It was only now that the slightest frown began to crease her pale features.

“He must be running late,” Neville said, just to say something.

It wasn’t long ago at all that he would have thought nothing of it, but these days any absence carried with it an undercurrent of darker possibilities. Especially in this case, when Luna’s father had been using his paper to criticise the Ministry. It was very brave and admirable of him, but also very dangerous. Neville still carried the bruises that came with acting out against the current powers.

“He might be reading quite a good book,” Luna suggested.

“Right, yeah,” Neville said, though he didn’t believe it any more than she did.

Time dragged on, seemingly more slowly by the second. The shadows grew longer outside. When the clock struck two, Neville knew they had to make a decision.

“Perhaps I should just go,” Luna said, standing.

“No! No, let’s… How about we send an owl, first?” Neville said.

Luna clearly didn’t like waiting even longer, but she understood the dangers involved. She wrote a quick note whilst Neville fetched one of the house owls. They sent the owl out the window and watched it swoop away through the light snow that had begun falling, obscuring the sun behind a curtain of white and grey.

The owl came back the next day, letter unopened.

They sat on the edge of Neville’s bed together, hands intertwined as Luna looked out his window with a lost expression, the morning sun blotted out behind snowfall. Neville had tried to make her feel better, but in truth he was just as worried. If the owl hadn’t been able to find her father, then he wasn’t at home. And since he’d never arrived at Neville’s…

He held Luna’s hand as his heart sat heavy in his chest and she stared listlessly out his window. He could barely stand it, the way she looked. He felt so helpless.

“I suppose they’ll take me, once I go back,” Luna said quietly into the silence.

Rage filled Neville so suddenly that he got caught up in it as if by surprise. “We shouldn’t go back,” he said, making up his mind right then.

Luna fixed him with a very direct look. “I won’t sit and do nothing, Neville,” she told him.

“We shouldn’t do that, either.” He jumped up and rummaged through his things until he found what he was looking for: the mirror Lila had given him. He popped it open and touched his wand to it, speaking the password. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

Luna came up and peered into the mirror as well. For a few long moments, there was nothing. Neville was just beginning to feel disappointed when the surface of the mirror suddenly brightened, and he found himself looking into wide green eyes.

“Hello? Oh, Neville!” It was Sophie, appearing delighted to see him. “How are you?”

“Not good. We… We need to talk.” He quickly summarised what had happened over the last day.

Sophie’s demeanour became solemn. “Okay, I understand. Just a second, please.”

She must have set the mirror down because it went blank again. Neville looked to Luna whilst they waited. “You think Harry will let us help?” he said uncertainly. It was possible Harry would still want them to be his eyes and ears at Hogwarts, but if that were the case then Neville was going back alone. It just wasn’t even slightly safe for Luna, not anymore.

“He’ll want to help us, first,” Luna predicted.

That did sound like Harry. There was sound from the mirror, and Neville looked back down to it. “Neville?” Another pair of green eyes appeared, albeit of a different shade. “You there, mate?”

“Is that you, Harry?” Neville said, raising the mirror to be more in line with his face.

Harry held it back, too. Behind him, Neville could see what he thought was someone’s arm and a bit of Hermione’s distinctive hair. “I brought everyone else. What happened?”

Again, Neville related the ominous news. “And the owl’s just come back with the letter,” he finished.

Harry’s expression was grim. “How’s Luna?”

“She’s right here, she’s…” Rather than trying to speak for her, Neville turned the mirror slightly in her direction.

“I really want to look for my dad,” Luna said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, I reckoned. But…” Harry’s face creased in thought. “Damn, if we weren’t right in the middle of…”

“Retask Lil,” someone said off-mirror.

Harry’s head turned. “Is she available, what with the…?”

“If she’s on schedule. She’s in a better position than we are to do something, whatever the case.”

Harry turned back to the mirror. “Nev, I really want to go with but you caught us right in the middle of something. Scott reckons Lila can help you, and then maybe we can meet up the day after tomorrow. Is that all right?”

“Um, yeah.” Neville was once again lost, feeling left out and confused.

“Sorry, mate, but we’re halfway out the door. When we get back we’ll get you and Luna sorted, if Lila hasn’t already, I promise.”

“Good luck, Harry,” Luna said.

He smiled tightly. “Thanks, Luna. You, too.”

The mirror was passed back to Sophie. “I’m going to forward your connection to Lila, okay? I already sent her a message so she knows.”

Neville wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded anyway. “Okay. And, um, thanks.”

“We’ll help more as soon as we can,” Sophie assured him, and then the mirror went blank again.

Neville looked at Luna uncertainly. “I guess we wait…?”

“They seemed in a hurry,” Luna noted. “I hope they’ll be all right.”

“Me, too,” Neville said. He hoped they were all going to be all right.

The mirror flickered, and then familiar grey eyes appeared. “Hello?” Lila said.

“Hi, yeah! It’s me. It’s, uh, it’s Neville,” he said awkwardly.

“Sophie said there was a problem.”  
  
Neville quickly got Lila up to speed. “So he never showed and we’re worried, you know, it’s… It’s Luna’s dad.”

“You’re at your house?” Lila asked.

“Yes, the both of us,” Neville confirmed.

“I’m about to be in the middle of something, but I’ll be over as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere. I’m serious. Stay put.”

Neville glanced at Luna. She didn’t look happy with having to delay the trip to her place, but she did seem resigned to it, which was probably the best Neville could hope for. “Okay. We’ll be here.”

“Good. See you soon.”

The mirror went blank once more, and Neville snapped it shut.

“That’s good, yeah?” he said, trying to remain positive.

Luna looked at him very seriously. “Do you think he’s all right?”

Neville just stared back at her, the right words, whatever they were, not coming to him.

Her shoulders drooped slightly, and she turned away. “Neither do I,” she said quietly.

He knew he’d never find anything worthwhile to say to that (sort of doubted there was anything at all). So he gently placed his hands on her shoulders and sat back down on the bed.

She sat with him and they stayed like that for a time; worried, but together.

***---~**~---***

Remus watched out of the corner of his eye as Lila spoke into her hand. He couldn’t see who she was communicating with or how she was doing it, but he had what he thought were some good assumptions.

He knew better than to ask, anyway.

“See you soon,” she said, shutting something with a soft click and hiding it back in one of her pockets. She turned around and resumed her place next to Remus at the table.

“Is everything all right?” he ventured.

“No,” she said. “But you knew that.”

He supposed she meant the state of things in their entirety, and of course she was right. Hence the meeting of the Order that was about to take place at Shell Cottage. It was one of a long line of such meetings, though it was the first to which Lila had been invited. She’d proven herself a capable ally, if a secretive one.

Moody came stumping into the room, slouching into one of the chairs and taking a pull from his flask. Tucking it back into his robes, he said to Remus, “You see the _Prophet?”_

Remus knew Moody wasn’t one for small talk. Whatever the news was, it was important (which was unusual for the _Prophet_ , now that it was controlled by the puppet Ministry). “No, I haven’t. Something of concern?”

“Could be,” Moody grunted. He dug through another pocket and withdrew a crumpled copy of the _Daily Prophet._ He tossed it onto the table. “Front page.”

Remus pulled the paper across the table and looked at it. The headline across the top declared, **‘GRINGOTTS PLUNDERED IN DARING DAYLIGHT RAID’** , with smaller print adding, _‘Gringotts goblins helpless to stop attack; brave Aurors slain by terrorists’._ Remus’ eyes widened in surprise.

“Great Merlin,” he muttered, scanning over the rest of the article. “Someone actually robbed Gringotts?”

“Just the top part of it, but that’s bad enough,” Moody said.

“And even got away with it…” Remus read over the last paragraph.

“If you believe it.”

Remus nodded, setting the paper down. “The _Prophet_ isn’t the most trustworthy source.”

“ _Something_ happened there. I’ve heard things, talked to people. There was an attack. But by who, and for what…?”

Remus considered that. “You think You-Know-Who was behind it?”

Moody’s expression soured. “It makes sense. Those rotters would love a chance to discredit the goblins and take the bank for themselves. It’s a damn good pretext.”

“Especially if Aurors were killed,” Remus noted.

Moody snorted in contempt. “‘Brave Aurors’,” he sneered. “Bloody Death Eaters, more like.”

Remus frowned slightly. “If some of them really were killed, he may not have been behind it.”

“Perhaps,” Moody allowed. “Maybe someone did rob the place, but I doubt they got away. They say that, it makes the goblins look weak. Gives them a reason to get in there, start mucking with things. The bank’s lost.” Moody’s regular eye squinted contemplatively. “But we might come out ahead. There’ll be a lot of angry goblins after this. Angry enough to side with some wizards, even…”

“It’s worth looking into,” Remus cautiously agreed. “I do have my doubts.”

“As do I.” Moody jerked his chin up at Lila. “What about you, what do you make of this?”

Lila had been sitting to the side of their conversation without comment. When Moody addressed her, she glanced at the paper. “I’d want a second source before committing to anything,” she said neutrally.

“I asked for an opinion, not a commitment,” Moody said firmly, his electric blue eye fixed on her.

“Then I agree. I’ve been to Gringotts and I don’t think anyone could rob it and escape. Some idiot probably tried and gave Riddle the excuse he was looking for.”

Moody assessed her for a silent moment. When she didn’t blink, he finally looked away with an odd twist to his lips. “While he still needs one,” he said. “He won’t for much longer.”

“It’s surprising how long he’s maintained his ruse,” Remus agreed.

“Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Moody growled.

And with that lovely thought, the rest of the core Order members began to enter the room, cutting the conversation short. Remus stood and embraced a slightly out of breath Tonks, whose cheeks and nose were pink with the cold.

“You been out in that rot?” she asked him, tugging at her scarf. “I swear it gets colder every bloody time I have to be outside at all. It’s like it knows.”

“You’ve been hunting?” he asked, knowing she had probably been searching for fleeing Muggle-borns, hoping to find them before the Snatchers did.

“Me and Kingsley, yeah. Had a bit of luck, actually: found the Ingalls hiding not too far from their home. They’re over at the Exeter place.” She glanced over at the others in the room, and then said more quietly, “Harry’s up to something, I expect.”

Remus leaned in closer. “Why do you say that?”

“That girl, Kylie? She’s at Exeter, too. I even asked why they’d brought her over, but she wouldn’t say. Never said where she usually stays, either, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Remus mulled that over. This second-year, Kylie, had appeared at the Exeter safehouse without warning not too long ago, brought there by Lila. That wouldn’t have been especially remarkable, except that her stay had been temporary. She must have been involved in Harry’s business in some way, though Remus couldn’t say how. He also wondered why she hadn’t been given over to the Order’s care on a permanent basis. Harry must have had his reasons.

“She wouldn’t tell you?” Remus said, finding that sort of reticence odd in one so young.

“Not a word. Clammed up and just stared at me like I was touched in the head.” Tonks shrugged. “Suppose she thought I was, asking about that. They’re a loyal lot, Harry’s friends.”

“He’s much like his father, that way,” Remus murmured, lost for a moment in reminiscence.

“All right, listen up,” Moody said loudly, bringing everyone to attention.

With Dumbledore gone, the Order had no official leader and no one had tried to directly assume the role. Decisions tended to be made by the group, on the rare occasion there was actually time to make them that way. Most of the Order’s movements were reactionary and required such tight timing that the obvious course of action was simply performed without much in the way of debate. Moody was considered the senior member, however, and tended to take charge during meetings.

“We’ve got a break,” Moody said shortly. “Fletcher, tell ‘em.”

Mundungus started to stand and then seemed to think better of it, slumping back onto his chair. “Had a chat with a couple of me mates,” he began, and it was abundantly clear what he meant by ‘chat’ given the strong smell of Firewhisky still wafting off him. “‘eard some of them Snatchers was comin’ out to Sheffield to have a shufti, on account of a bit of bother they already ‘ad with some goblins. But I heard it wasn’t just goblins; there was students with ‘im, too. They grabbed some but the rest scarpered and now they’re off to snatch ‘em proper.”

Remus traded a glance with Tonks, the implication striking them simultaneously.

Moody leaned forward. “Right. This is the first real chance we’ve had to find out where these bastards are taking people. We follow the Snatchers, find the targets, and if we’re lucky, they’ll have something to tell us.”

“Why would they still be around Sheffield? Wouldn’t they have Apparated somewhere else by now?” Bill asked.

“The first dust up was somewhere else. Sheffield is where the Snatchers plan to look this time,” Moody clarified. “Someone they took must have talked.”

“Did they say who they’re after?” Kingsley said.

“They were a bit dodgy about it. Not munted enough for me to ask, neither,” Mundungus recalled.

“It’s better that you kept your cover,” Moody told him, before addressing the group once more. “We don’t know how many there’ll be, but you can wager there’ll be more of them than there are us. I say we bring everyone who isn’t already off on something else.”

“These goblins and students… even if they did get away, they may not know anything,” Kingsley pointed out.

“I know it. But look at our options. We haven’t captured a single one of these berks, either because we’ve been outnumbered or because we had to kill ‘em — and we usually have to kill them because we’re outnumbered!” Moody’s pale slash of a mouth twisted with contempt. “Merlin knows I don’t give a damn if we have to thin them out… But we’re no closer to getting back anyone they’ve taken than we were at the start of this mess. And maybe it’s already too late. But we’ve got to try. We’ve got to.”

“You know I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t try, Alastor,” Kingsley said firmly. “At the very least, we might be able to get some more people to one of the safehouses.”

“And if that’s all, it’ll be worth it. So, who’s going?”

Tonks immediately raised her hand, along with Remus. So did Bill, Kingsley, Arthur and Doge. Remus was quite surprised to see that Lila did not.

Moody noticed that, as well. “Whatever trust issues we’ve had, forget it,” he told her. “We need you.”

“It’s not that. I’m already on assignment,” Lila said.

Moody frowned. “From who?”

Lila said nothing, but the look she gave Moody made it clear she thought he should already know the answer.

“More secrets,” Moody growled. “All right, have it your way. Or his way, whichever.”

“I’ll link up with you at Sheffield if I can.”

The meeting adjourned temporarily to allow all present to consider a plan of action; after supper, they’d take everyone’s input and decide how best to approach the mission. Remus was just turning to talk to Tonks again when Lila suddenly appeared to his side.

“The werewolf thing is on hold,” she said. “Sorry. Something came up.”

“That’s all right, I don’t think we’d be all that convincing just yet,” Remus replied. “The full moon already happened this month; our proof would be rather delayed.” He was fairly certain he wouldn’t get an answer, but was compelled to ask, “Is Harry doing well?”

“As far as I know,” Lila said in a sympathetic tone.

“Is this something we could get in on?” Tonks said hopefully. “Like, maybe you could use another hand or two?”

“Not this time. The Order is going to need you in Sheffield. Move carefully. Stay safe,” Lila urged. When she saw their reactions, the slightest of smiles crossed her face and she added, “Not for me. For Harry.”

“You, too,” Tonks said, clapping the taller woman on the arm. “And when you see Harry, tell him that if he ever needs us, for anything, we’ll be there.”

“He knows.” Lila glanced at the clock on the wall. “People are waiting for me. Good luck out there.”

And with that, she left, striding out of the cottage and off to parts unknown. For a moment, Remus wished he could go where she was; where Harry was, presumably. But whatever Dumbledore had left to Harry had not been left to Remus. And Remus chose to trust in the old Headmaster’s judgement, hard as it sometimes was.

No point in dwelling, though. There were things to gather, and plans to make.


	42. Pounds Per Square Inch

**42**

**Pounds Per Square Inch**

\---

_“Believing their deaths to be certain —_  
_a belief not without reason, given the_  
_staggering casualties the Imperium_  
_suffered on Serenus — jump infantry_  
_shaved their hair into the shape of_  
_a three-pronged trident. This display_  
_proclaimed their allegiance to Deorsan,_  
_the ancient Kerdjai god of death and_  
_entropy, gatekeeper of the unlife and_  
_lord of the Blank Sea. With his trident_  
_he judged the recently deceased,_  
_piercing them through the heart,_  
_throat and head, and thus weighing  
_ _their spirit, words and thoughts._

_Even in the age of the Middle Imperium,_  
_few truly believed in the old gods. But_  
_this revival of pagan symbolism created_  
_a battle tradition among jump infantry  
_ _which survives to this day._

—Angelica Petrakis, _Four Pillars_  

\---

Neville had been expecting a knock on the door at some point, but that didn’t stop him from rushing to answer it. He could see familiar blonde hair through the glass at the sides, a sight which made him relax slightly. Help was here.

He opened the door and Lila immediately stepped inside, brushing past him. She pulled her sleeve back, looking down at a watch.

“Pack everything you need,” she told him. “I don’t think you’re coming back.”

Neville nodded. “We’re already packed. We reckoned, since… I mean, they’ll know where we are.”

“Not for long.” She looked out the window. “Grab everything you can’t leave.”

Neville hurried back upstairs. Luna was bent over one of her bags, shoving a last few items into it. She looked up when he came in. “Is it time to leave?” she asked.

“Yeah, Lila’s here,” he told her. He’d already gathered up everything he could think of that might be useful, which wasn’t a whole lot. “She says we aren’t coming back.”

Luna thoughtfully considered that. “That’s all right,” she decided. “I’ve had enough of being left out. Haven’t you?”

“Plenty,” he agreed. He knew Harry had wanted them to watch after Hogwarts as best they could, but Neville wasn’t going to go back if Luna had become an open target. As far as he was concerned, if she was targeted, so was he. And they wouldn’t be any good to Harry captured or dead.

Neville didn’t allow himself to look around the house much as he went down the stairs with Luna. He didn’t feel like getting sentimental, or wondering if he’d ever see the old place again. He’d told Gran to hide anything valuable and go abroad, stay away from England, but she wouldn’t hear of it. He thought she’d probably be okay, being an extremely wealthy pure-blood with a lot of connections. Still. He’d rather she tried a bit more to keep herself safe, though he knew it would be a losing battle. His grandmother did as she pleased.

Lila met them just outside the door. Snow lay heavy on the ground and the sun shone feebly through a thick cover of clouds. It struck Neville, as he took in the frosty scenery, that it was almost Christmas, and how little that meant now.

“Luna, you know the village?” Lila asked her as they crunched through the snow towards the property line. Neville could Disapparate within the wards, but seeing as he didn’t know where to go that didn’t do much good.

Luna nodded. “There’s a spot Daddy and I went to sometimes, near the shops.”

“You take Neville there and I’ll follow you. We’ll leave your stuff at my apartment and then go from there.” Lila checked her watch again.

They were at the end of the long walkway to the house, in the section of the wards that allowed Apparition. Neville took Luna’s hand and tried to secure his bag to himself better. Luna held out her wand, and together they twisted through the nether and arrived with a sudden jolt, sinking ankle-deep in snow.

They were in an alleyway behind a squat stone building. Neville could hear Muggle sounds coming from overhead and around the nearby corner, past the rubbish bins against an old, pitted brick wall.

He turned when he heard the ice compacting behind him, just in time to see Lila walking purposefully past him. She peered around the corner of the alleyway, and then beckoned them forward.

“Act casual,” she instructed, slinging her rucksack onto her back and striding out into the street.

Neville did his best to emulate, trying to look like he belonged walking amidst all the Muggle vehicles and the occasional pedestrian. Steam billowed from pipes atop roofs as signs glowed behind glass windows and cars churned through the slush, stopping and going in no pattern that Neville could discern. He nearly stepped out into the street before Lila grabbed the shoulder of his coat firmly and held him in place. They didn’t cross until one of the lights changed. There was obviously a system in place, one that allowed the cars to move with the people, taking turns. He thought he almost had it worked out when Lila took a sharp turn into another back alley. This one was wider and full of stationary cars, and she led them up a set of stairs.

The doors in the cramped hallway all looked the same, save for the numbers. Lila opened one and brought them into a small, tastefully decorated flat which had the unnaturally neat quality of a place not really lived in, somewhere that had been cleaned and furnished and then left alone.

Lila surveyed it wryly. “Looks like a model home, doesn’t it?” she said, and though Neville wasn’t sure what a ‘model home’ was, by context he assumed she was echoing his thoughts. “Drop your junk wherever. You guys hungry?”

Neville honestly didn’t think he could eat a thing. His chest was tight and his stomach uneasy, afraid of what they might find at Luna’s house. “No, thank you,” he said.

Luna simply sat on the couch and observed the clock on the wall, her gaze rarely leaving it.

It wasn’t that long until dark, really, but the handful of hours left as the sun dipped towards the horizon felt like years. There was a Muggle telly and some other forms of amusement which Lila offered them. Neville might have found them engaging in different circumstances. Instead, they mostly sat on the couch and watched the shadows slide across the bare white walls as the Muggle news flickered on the screen. No one was paying much attention to it, not even Lila, who seemed more concerned with keeping an eye on the street.

Finally, the last orange and purple notes of evening dimmed until there was only the faintest hint of light along the horizon, hiding the lowest stars. Lila looked out the window and judged it to be dark enough for their purposes.

Neville and Luna followed her out the door and back into the cold. The streets were long stretches of darkness dotted by the pools of streetlamps. It was snowing lightly, flakes catching in the beams from the lamps, briefly illuminating in front of windows. Ahead was the real dark, past the edge of the town where there were no more lights. The moon was utterly absent above the heavy clouds.

There was a smaller road that ran out of the town and over the river, in the direction that Neville knew the Weasleys’ house was. They walked all the way to the edge of the woods without a single car passing by. Neville glanced to his right, knowing that somewhere over there in the blackness was where he and the others had stopped at the end of their hurried escape from the wedding. It seemed so long ago, though he knew it wasn’t.

It was so dark in the trees that Neville’s only point of reference became Lila’s golden hair, occasionally swinging into sight ahead of him. After the fourth time nearly walking into something, he said, “Can’t we have Luna take us closer?”

“I don’t want the noise,” Lila said. “It’s not too far.”

Which was easy for her to say, given how effortlessly she was striding through the snow. Neville kept his mouth shut, though, and slogged onward. Luna was the shortest of the three of them and struggled the most. He took her hand and leaned forward to pull her out of the deepest drifts.

They reached the edge of the tree line. Before them, the ground rose up in a gradual hill. There was a fence partially buried in the drifts, and behind it were a wide variety of plants, all weighed down with snow. The craggy, rook-shaped outline of Luna’s house was almost indiscernible against the blackness overhead.

Lila pulled a knit hat out of a pocket and tucked her hair up under it. Then she crouched next to a tree, perfectly still, for a few long, silent minutes. Neville wanted to ask what she was doing but reckoned he probably should stay quiet. When Lila moved again, she pulled a handgun out of her coat, its barrel a long, heavy cylinder.

“Stay here and keep low,” she told them. “Wands out.”

Then she vanished into the night. Neville huddled down in the snow with Luna, wand clenched tightly against his midsection where he had his hand tucked into his coat. The soft crunch of Lila’s footsteps faded into the dull ambience of the falling snow. It had begun falling harder, and the world had a muffled quality that made Neville nervous. He’d much prefer his senses to be unimpeded, but he couldn’t hear much and could barely see a thing.

“Are you cold?” he whispered to Luna, trying to hunch over her and shield her a bit from the wind.

“I’m all right, Neville,” she said, though she did press closer to him.

His jaw set stubbornly. He wasn’t going to believe that, not as they were looking at her house without a single sign of life in it. “You’re not all right,” he said stiffly, trying to keep his voice down. “Nothing about this is all right.”

He couldn’t see her expression, but heard her breath hitch. “…What am I to say?” she sighed.

He felt even worse, then. There wasn’t any point in badgering her into some sort of confession. “Sorry. I’m… sorry.” He pressed his lips against the top of her head by way of apology, since he couldn’t see her well enough for a proper kiss.

One small, cold hand snaked its way up through the collar of his coat to rest on the back of his neck. “We’re all right,” she said, contradicting his statement. “That’s one thing.”

Bloody hell, he wished he could see her. He didn’t dare light his wand. “Y- yeah,” he muttered, holding her close, “that’s one thing.”

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. There was a soft rustle somewhere to his left. He reckoned it was probably Lila, but raised his wand in that direction anyway, straining to make anything out.

“It’s Lila. Hold your fire, I’m approaching from your left.” Lila’s voice came floating out of the dark, somewhere behind what Neville thought was a bush. She must have done a full circle around the edge of the Lovegood property.

“Is anyone there?” Luna asked her.

“There’s at least one sentry inside,” Lila told her.

Neville felt Luna’s shoulders slump. Her father was gone.

“Do either of you know how to do that spell that makes you hard to see?” Lila questioned them. “No? Okay, you’re going to follow me. You only move when I do and you stop right away when I say so. Got it?”

Again, they set off into the snow, Luna’s house an indistinct blot somewhere in front of them. They moved through the garden, slithering between bushes and crouching beneath trees. At one point, Lila motioned for them to run across an open space and then kneel, motionless, in a row of thorn bushes. They were lucky to be wearing coats. Neville assumed that someone must be looking out the windows of the tower occasionally. His heart pounded every time Lila hissed for them to stop. He hated being blind and helpless.

They ended up hidden behind a Snargaluff plant (Neville quickly picked the pod inside with a deft hand, rendering the prickly plant inert). The door, flanked on each side by Dirigible plum bushes, was only twenty or so feet away. Lila’s focus seemed fixated on the tower’s first storey. Neville could only just make out the front of the house and still hadn’t seen anybody, but he knew better than to doubt the Kharadjai. He reckoned she could see just fine.

She looked over her shoulder at them. “Are you ready?” she said.

Neville swallowed hard, but nodded, gripping his wand. Luna also gave an affirmative.

“Count to thirty. Then run up there and shove open the door.” Lila rose halfway to her feet, leaning forward. “…Now.” She shot off into the dark.

“One… two… three…” Luna began to whisper. Neville silently counted with her, every muscle tensing until he felt like he had to move or he’d burst. “…Thirty.”

They didn’t really run because they couldn’t, not with all the snow bogging them down. Neville had the fleeting thought that their daring charge probably looked a bit stupid if anyone was watching, the two of them awkwardly lifting their legs as high as they could and sort of lunging through the drifts. When they reached the door, Luna threw it open, sending it crashing against the wall with a bang that was incredibly loud in the air of the silent night.

The inside was a cavern of utter darkness. Then, from upstairs, Neville heard a crash and what he thought was the clatter of broken glass. Something hit the floorboards with a muffled thud that rattled the ceiling.

He didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. He decided his presence was well enough announced already and lit his wand, raising it above his head.

The light revealed a kitchen painted in bright colours; field flowers, birds and insects decorated the walls, detailed in what Neville recognised as Luna’s hand. Nothing seemed amiss, save for the door being unlocked, though Neville didn’t know if that was unusual. Someone was walking around upstairs, and he hoped it was Lila.

Realising they were now very visible against the snowy night behind them, Neville pulled the door shut. He was about to ask Luna if it looked like anything had been stolen, but bit his tongue at the last second. She probably didn’t care much if a few things went missing when her father was, too. His wand cast eerie shadows around the small room. The spiral staircase in front of him curved around and upwards and he couldn’t see past the first turn.

He looked at Luna and found that she was already looking to him, eyes wide with an unspoken question. He nodded and they moved forward, he lighting the way whilst she covered their advance.

They were just rounding the right side of the room, trying to see up the staircase, when Lila’s voice echoed down it. “Don’t shoot, it’s Lila,” she said from somewhere above. “You can come up.”

The next floor was dedicated to a study, crammed with books, haphazardly piled papers and all sorts of odd and ends, including a printing press. No doubt most Quibbler articles were assembled here. The window above the desk had been shattered inward, and the temperature was rapidly dropping; the light from Neville wand reflected off the shards. Small, animated models of strange creatures attached to the ceiling flapped their wings and snapped their jaws, as if agitated by the sudden disturbance.

There was a stain not too far from the desk, and it glistened wetly. Neville looked about, but didn’t see a body. He reckoned Lila might have shoved it out the window.

“Does it always look like this?” Lila asked, indicating the papers scattered everywhere.

Luna was staring down at the stain, and did not answer.

“That isn’t your father’s,” Lila told her. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”

Reassured, Luna looked more closely at the room. “No, everything is quite organised,” she said.

Lila eyed a pile of manuscripts that looked like a sneeze would knock it over; it was a minor miracle her window entry hadn’t. “If you say so. The house is clear. Take whatever you want, but hurry — and leave the lights off.”

Neville and Luna went up the next set of stairs whilst Lila went down to the kitchen. Despite the circumstances, Neville was curious to see Luna’s room. He was looking upwards as he exited the top of the staircase, and almost dropped his wand when the first thing the light landed upon was his own face.

It was a portrait of himself, along with Ron, Harry, Hermione and Ginny, all painted on the canvas of Luna’s ceiling. They were excellent likeness, created in broad strokes that somehow all came together to form even the finer details. A golden, loopy script that was instantly recognisable as Luna’s handwriting circled the pictures, uniting them. It said, ‘friends’.

The golden hearts dotting the edges of Neville’s portrait looked like a more recent embellishment.

“Luna, that’s brilliant,” he said, gaping up at the artwork.

“I worked hard to get your nose right. It’s a very nice nose,” Luna told him, catching his nose between her thumb and forefinger.

“Thanks,” he said nasally.

Her expression turned pensive. “I’ll have to leave it.”

It took him a second to realise she meant the painting, not his nose. “It’ll still be here when you… when you and your dad come back,” he said.

Luna shrugged whimsically, looking up at him. “I won’t need the reminder. I’ll have all of you, and that’s much better.”

She would have him, anyway, whatever happened with Harry and the others. Neville knew the Death Eaters had probably taken Luna’s father because of _The Quibbler,_ but he wasn’t convinced they weren’t also after her. Neville was dead set on sticking with her, no matter what.

Luna picked up only a few things, mostly whatever fit in her pockets (including an old photograph of herself and her mother). Neville assumed she had already brought most, if not all the essentials to his place already. Still, he hated to see her have to choose like this, hoping her keepsakes wouldn’t be destroyed.

“Um, Luna, how about this…” He stripped a pillowcase from her bedding and held it out to her. “Take anything important. It’s all going to stay at Lila’s flat anyway, yeah?”

That brightened her up a bit, and she emptied a few drawers from her wardrobe. It might have been fun, helping her sort through her treasures, but the single harsh light of Neville’s wand was a constant reminder of their precarious situation. Mindful of that fact, they hurried back down the staircase.

Before they could descend to the kitchen, Lila called up, “Can you fix that window?”

Neville turned back to the window in the study. He noticed the bloodstain on the floor was gone, and the edges of the fractured glass had filled in somewhat and rounded off. Lila must have been able to clean the floor without problem, but had trouble with repairing the window. Luna waved her wand, and a well-placed Mending Charm sent the shards flying back into place.

Downstairs, they found Lila crouched by the doorway, looking at something on the floor. She stood and held out a head of garlic. “Is there any reason this would be significant? I don’t see any other food laying around,” she said.

Luna’s eyes filled with worry. “Daddy always answers the door with garlic at hand, ever since the Ministry wouldn’t let him publish that article about Scrimgeour being a vampire.”

Lila placed the garlic back where she had found it. “Come on.”

She led them back into the cold. It had begun snow heavily, though the wind had calmed. Large, clumpy snowflakes drifted from the black sky and clung to everything like goose down.

“You know the way back?” Lila asked them quietly after they had cleared the garden fence.

“Um…” Neville looked out into the near-impenetrable darkness. Surely she didn’t mean walking? “I can Apparate to your flat.”

“No. We’re too close to the Burrow, and my neighbourhood may be under watch. Three Muggles walked out of town, and three Muggles are walking back.”

“All right. But, I don’t think we can make it back on our own. I can’t see a bloody thing,” Neville told her.

Lila paused. “…No, I guess you can’t,” she said, as if just then realising how dark it was. “Get into the bushes and stay low. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

Lila disappeared again. Neville took Luna’s hand and together they stumbled their way through the snow until they reached the treeline, after which even the almost imperceptible light of the moon vanished. Neville knew what Lila had to be up to, even if he didn’t know exactly how she was going about it. No doubt whenever the next sentry came to take their turn, there wouldn’t be any sign of the first one. Neville found the thought wasn’t as repulsive as it used to be. He’d like Lila to have a go at the Carrows.

He knew he shouldn’t think that way. It was just easy, sometimes.

When Lila finally returned, they followed her back through the woods. Reaching the road was a relief, as the snow there was no longer so deep that it impeded movement. The lights of the town beckoned them across the river. There were fewer cars about, and almost no other pedestrians. The heavy snow seemed to deaden the air, bringing unnatural stillness.

They stomped up the stairs to Lila’s flat, brushing snow from their shoulders and shaking it off the legs of their trousers where it matted and clung. The warmth of the building was almost too much after a couple hours spent outside; Neville felt like his face was burning.

“I suggest you leave anything you won’t use,” Lila said. “This is probably the best storage we have right now. The other places are safe enough, but you never know when you’ll have to leave in a hurry.” Lila looked at her watch again. “We have a ways to drive. Try to be fast.”

Neville could easily oblige. He went over to where he’d left the bag from his house and hoisted it over one shoulder. “I’m ready,” he said, as Luna did the same.

A wry smile flitted over Lila’s face. “Let’s go.”

As the lights of the town faded behind them, Neville sank back into his seat and listened to the hum of the motor and the constant rumble of the road beneath the tyres. It was just a bit too warm in the car, and it was making him sleepy. Luna was already making optimal use of the travel time, her wayward blonde tresses scattered over his shoulder as she slept against his side. He fought the sensation for a time, thinking that maybe Lila might need him for something, but eventually he let his eyelids close and the gentle rocking of the vehicle lull him into slumber.

He experienced a feeling of déjà vu when he awoke with his forehead stinging. Flicking someone in the head was apparently Lila’s preferred method of waking them up (Neville wished she wouldn’t do it quite so hard).

“What time is it?” he yawned, sitting up. Outside the windows he saw a car park, along with rows of buildings whose mixed architecture and bright lights told him he was somewhere in Muggle London.

“Almost one-thirty,” Lila said. “Grab your stuff, there’s a few blocks to walk.”

The city seemed busy despite the hour. There weren’t as many people about as there would be during the day, but there was still a fair amount of traffic and enough people on foot that the three of them didn’t stick out. Lila seemed on edge despite this, one hand tucked into a pocket that Neville was fairly certain had a gun in it, or at least a knife.

The amount of activity around them gradually decreased the farther they went into the terrace houses. Then they turned a corner and found themselves alone for the first time. It had stopped snowing, and the moon glared off the snow gathered against the stoops of the houses and street kerbs.

Lila dug a piece of parchment out of a pocket with something scribbled on it. “Look at this,” she said, holding it out to them.

The handwriting looked familiar. It said:

 

This is Number 12 Grimmauld Place

 

Neville watched as an entire section of the row seemed to spring into being right in front of him, expanding and pushing out the houses to the sides.

“Burn it,” Lila said, thrusting the parchment into one of Neville’s hands. He obligingly ignited it with his wand. “Okay, they should be back from their mission by now. If they aren’t, you’ll have to wait. I need to check on the Order.”

They followed her up the short set of the steps. Lila placed her hand flat against the door, and it swung open.

***---~**~---***

The floor of the van wasn’t the most comfortable of places to sit. It was bare metal for the most part, though Harry found that leaning against the back of Scott’s driver seat helped a bit. There was a ladder on the outside of the vehicle that rattled loudly whenever they went over a bump. After the first forty-five minutes or so, he’d become used to it.

He still wasn’t certain where Sophie had obtained the vehicle, which was the sort used by working people. Harry had seen a few in his time, out on the streets of Little Whinging. The one he was currently in had the logo and name of a power company on the side. It made him suspect it was likely stolen, though he hadn’t asked.

He was with Hermione, Ginny and Ron in the windowless back area, crammed in with all sorts of Muggle tools and great big spools of cable. Scott was driving, wearing a boilersuit and a hat with the same branding as the motor.

Harry reckoned it was a clever ruse. He also thought it might well be wasted on any Death Eaters around Privet Drive, who probably didn’t give a second thought to Muggle vehicles. But Scott had insisted, and Harry didn’t feel like arguing when it came to safety precautions. They could all stand to be more careful.

Ginny was tucked up against his side, which made the trip much more pleasant. She was leaning back, trying to look out the window without much success. Giving up, she grabbed a heavy coil of rubbery black cable and sat it on her lap.

“What do you suppose this is?” she said, studying the end of it. She used her finger to spin the little nut on the threads.

“Er… It’s for television, I think,” Harry said, not entirely certain.

“Oh, like Kylie’s?” Ginny peered into the cable, as if she thought there might be an image inside of it. “Do you think Sophie would let me keep some of those tapes she’s got?”

Harry had noticed Ginny’s interest in some of the Muggle concepts that had been introduced to her over the course of her time spent with the Kharadjai (she’d even said she’d like a car, come to think of it). It amused him to think that there was more of her dad in her than she would probably admit. He was fine with that, though. After spending so many years divided between Hogwarts and a Muggle household where he was barely allowed any Muggle things at all, he’d ended up distanced from that part of his heritage. Scott had been a good reminder of how many amenities Muggles had that Harry wouldn’t mind keeping in his life.

“You could start your own collection. They aren’t hard to come by,” Harry said, thinking of the Dursleys and their video shelf.

“I saw Scott had that one in the Room of Requirement. Maybe we can find some more when we go back,” Ginny said casually.

Harry frowned. He didn’t know if he’d have a future at all, never mind one where he went back to Hogwarts. And if he really wanted to be an Auror… Well, if he snuffed the Dark Lord, there wouldn’t be a better chance than right after that, would there? Who would turn him down?

Ginny saw his expression. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly.

But it was too late. Ginny was now wearing a frown of her own. “You don’t think you’ll get the chance,” she stated. “Harry, it’s okay to think about tomorrow. Remember? Don’t give up.”

“It’s not that,” he told her, which was partially true. “I reckoned I’d just apply to be an Auror, if we win. Couldn’t be a better time for it, yeah?”

She looked conflicted, to say the least. “But… don’t you want to spend another year there, together?”

He hadn’t thought of that. Of course, he hadn’t thought much of his future at all. Not after Dumbledore died. “I could still be with you, just not all the time. I thought I should get on with it. What do N.E.W.T.s matter after all this?”

“Hold up,” Scott said suddenly from the front. “You’re dropping out of school?” His loud query gained Ron and Hermione’s attention as well, interrupting the conversation they’d been having.

“Bit slow on the uptake, mate?” Harry scoffed. “I already have.”

“No you haven’t, you’re, like, on sabbatical, or some shit. Leave of absence.”

“Well, I want to be an Auror and if this isn’t good enough training, then what is?”

“School is, dumbass. Don’t be a fuckin’ idiot, stay in school. Get a degree.”

Harry was taken aback by Scott’s vehemence. “What does any of that matter when we’ve been through all—”

“Yeah, all this guerrilla warfare is definitely a replacement for schooling, they’re totally the same thing!” Scott took one hand off the wheel to jab a finger in Harry’s face. “Harry, there are _millions_ of kids your age who will never have the opportunity to go to school, get the slightest education, or any kind of chance for upward mobility in society. And here you are with a goddamn free ride, and you’re going to choose general ignorance because you just can’t be _fucking bothered_ to expand your mind. You know what that makes you? It makes you a huge piece of shit.”

Harry gawped at him.

Scott’s hand returned to the wheel. “Go back to school. Or I swear to Christ, I will never respect you.”

“So what else is new?” Harry retorted. He glanced away from Scott to see Ron looking equally gobsmacked.

Hermione, however, was smiling beatifically. “It’s nice know you have some of your priorities straight, Scott,” she said.

Scott shook his head slowly. “I shouldn’t be the only one saying this. You want to go back by yourself, or what?”

Harry started to ask Hermione if she really planned on going back for her seventh year, but the question died on his lips the second he gave it some actual thought. Of course she was. She was Hermione.

“Ginny will be there, of course.” Hermione placed a hand on Ron’s arm. “Surely you will, too? Don’t you know how important your education is?”

Ron’s expression was a study in confliction. “Bloody hell, Hermione,” he groaned, head falling back against the side of the vehicle. “This could be my chance to finally skip a year!”

“Ron, it’s your _future,”_ she wheedled. Harry didn’t miss how her hand was now rubbing up and down his arm. “Besides, you’ll have already had a year off!”

“Right, yeah, this has been real relaxing holiday,” Ron snorted. Then he sighed. “…Well, it’d be another year of Quidditch, at least.”

Harry looked down at Ginny, only to find her looking right back at him, bright brown eyes wide and seductive. “You won’t make me go _two_ years without you, will you?” she said quietly, one hand warm against the side of his jaw.

Harry didn’t know what to think about it, now. “I…”

Her hand dropped, mouth firming. “I don’t want to push you into it. If you need to go be an Auror, then you should do what you really want.”

“I don’t know what I really want,” he told her honestly. He swallowed, and then finished, “As long as we’re together, I’m not sure I care.”

She kissed him, long and hard. When she pulled back she said, “You will. You just don’t want to let yourself hope for things yet. But we’ll be all right, you’ll see.” She kissed him again, softer this time. “…You’ll see.”

“What you want is to finish at Hogwarts so I don’t kick your ass for being a fucking moron,” Scott informed Harry, ruining the moment.

“Yeah, Harry… ‘Ya fuckin’ idiot,’” Ginny said in such a spot on imitation of Scott’s accent and cadence that they all laughed, except for Scott (though Harry could see him grinning).

The sun was setting by the time they reached Surrey. The mood in the vehicle sobered as they entered what might well be enemy territory.

“All right, everybody keep your heads down,” Scott warned as he turned into Little Whinging. “I’m a normal repair guy doing normal repair guy stuff and I definitely don’t have a bunch of magic people in the back of my van.”

They sat there in silence, tension ratcheting, as Scott meandered around the streets of the suburb. Harry wished he could see out, even though he knew there wasn’t much to see. He’d spent plenty of time walking the streets of Little Whinging to get away from household jobs and Dudley’s gang and just the Dursleys in general, and he knew there wasn’t anything to look at. It was a bit samey, to say the least.

It was getting darker. The light coming from the front windows had almost vanished, though Harry knew it probably looked later than it was. The clouds overhead held the promise of snow.

Harry felt the van slow down, and then it jolted as Scott put it into park. “Wouldn’t you know it, I found our boy,” Scott said, pretending to peruse a clipboard.

“Who?” Harry said.

“Same fashion victim that was wandering around the night we bailed. Still wearing the same outfit, too, or at least the same pants. I guess he just doesn’t have anything else, I don’t know. Now he’s got a leather coat and pink earmuffs. I’d feel bad for him if I didn’t already know he was an asshole.” Scott set the clipboard on the seat next to him and shifted the vehicle back into motion. “You know the plan.”

Harry moved to the very back of the van, huddling against the wall so he couldn’t be seen from the sliding door at the side of the vehicle. The others huddled there with him, which ended up being more difficult than he would have thought.

“Ron, you’re on my foot,” Hermione hissed, jerking away from him and knocking Ginny into Harry.

Harry ignored them, trying to keep his wand steady despite the rocking of the van and the fact Ginny was leaning on him.

The slight squeal of the brakes quieted them and put them all on edge. What happened next would decide whether their mission was a lost cause.

Scott rolled his window down, and the sudden rush of outside air was a bitter slap to the face. “Oi, mate!” he called out, tapping his hand against his door. “Yeah, you! You got a minute?”

Harry heard someone speaking outside, but the words were just muffled enough that he could only make out a few of them.

“Yeah, I’m with the power company, mate. I’ve got to work on this line, they got an order in. Yeah, an order. You live around here? Yeah? Cool, listen, I need your signature. I just need someone to sign off on this. No, just as a witness. …I couldn’t tell ya, mate, it’s just bog standard, right, it’s just legal bollocks. It’ll take half a mo’, hang on.”

Scott snatched the clipboard off the seat and clambered out of the van. There were a few more seconds of hard to hear conversation, and then the side door slid open, cold billowing in.

“Don’t know what I’ve done with it,” Scott said conversationally. He put the clipboard on the floor of the van, just inside the door. “Wife says I’d lose me arse if it weren’t stuck to me; I’m inclined to agree. Ah, here we go.” He grabbed the pen that was beneath the front seat and put one hand on the clipboard. “On the dotted line, mate, and I’ll be on my way.”

The Death Eater leaned down to sign the paper.

 _“Stupefy!”_ Ron spat.

In the space of a second, Scott shoved the man the rest of the way into the van and shut the sliding door. Then he calmly climbed back into driver seat and started moving slowly down the street again.

Harry rolled the sentry onto his back. He didn’t recognise the man, though, and doubted there’d be any clues to his identity in his random array of Muggle clothing. Ginny was squeezing the man’s sleeves; after a moment, she pulled his wand out of his left one.

“Here, let me have it,” Ron said. He took the wand, dropped it to the floor of the van and stomped on it with such a bang that it made them all flinch. “That’s done it,” he said, kicking one half of the broken wand away.

 _“Incarcerous!”_ Harry said, binding the sentry with ropes. He placed a hand against the side of the van when it shuddered to a halt again.

“Keep those Portkeys handy,” Scott said. Reflected scenery scrolled across the windscreen as he turned down another street.

If someone had seen them disable the sentry, it was possible the Muggle police would soon arrive, in which case they would be forced to return to Grimmauld and try something else (whatever that might be; all other options were daunting, to say the least). They were lucky that the heavy cloud cover gave better odds of not being seen. It was already dark out, and getting darker.

Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. He gazed down at the silvery material; it suddenly struck him as absurd, these lengths he was going to, in order to sneak back into a place he had wanted so badly to leave.

Scott parked the van again. Hopping out, he slid open the side door and buckled a work belt around his waist. “You’re up, Harry.”

Harry darted out of the vehicle under the cover of his Cloak as Scott went to fiddle with one of the metal boxes that sprouted out of the grass at intervals around Little Whinging. Harry had seen them often in the Muggle portions of his existence and knew they had something to do with power or cables of some sort. Scott seemed to know what he was doing; or at least he knew enough to open one without electrocuting himself.

Snow glinted briefly in the wide pools of the streetlamps. Harry stayed low and walked at the edge of the grass, assuming his footprints would be much easier to see on the concrete. The Dursleys’ was just ahead. He shook off the memories, kept moving. His hatred of the place was just more incentive to get the job done.

He crept around to the back garden. Aunt Petunia’s flowerbed was buried beneath a drift, as was one side of the shed. The piles of snow from the recent blizzard hadn’t even begun to melt, and it was snowing yet again. Harry didn’t see any footprints besides his own. He whispered the Unlocking Charm at the back door.

The house was dark and silent, blinds shut and curtains drawn. He shut the door behind himself and used _Tergeo_ to clean up the snow he’d tracked in. His search was quick and thorough — he knew all the best hiding spots, having used them many times himself. It felt strange, almost eerie, to move through the darkened rooms as much by memory as sight, carpet plush beneath his shoes. It was like dreams he’d had, near-nightmares, of being trapped and alone at Privet Drive, moving through an empty twilight version of the world. Of course, then he’d wake up in his cupboard, still trapped and alone.

He blinked, realising he was standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the locks on the cupboard door. He shook himself angrily. He didn’t have time for this.

He ran back to the van, trying to stay in the same line as his old footprints. “It’s empty,” he said, leaning inside. “Who’s first?”

“Me,” Ginny said, clambering to her feet.

Harry ferried his friends to the house one by one. By the time he came back for Scott it was black as pitch out, and the snow was thickening. Harry started deviating his path to avoid the pools of the light from the streetlamps. He reckoned his tracks would be covered up before too long, but there wasn’t any point in putting a literal spotlight on them.

Scott was crouched in the back of the van, hands in the rucksack which contained ammunition. His M4 was hanging from his torso. He looked up when Harry stepped in. “Ready?” he said.

Harry noticed the unconscious Death Eater was gone. “What did you do with him?” he asked, getting a sinking feeling he already knew.

“Gave him a dose of our leftover Sleeping Draught and buried him in a drift,” Scott said. When Harry’s expression remained suspicious, Scott shrugged. “I didn’t have to kill him. Hermione did a Memory Charm.”

No doubt she had also insisted that Scott not execute the poor bastard, no matter how much safer it was.

Soon, they were all inside. Harry whipped off the Cloak and reflexively reached up to adjust his glasses before he remembered he wasn’t wearing them. He kept doing that whilst wearing the contacts Sophie had made for him and he felt like an idiot every single time.

“So how do we start?” he asked Hermione.

“Well, I suppose what we brought with us should do…” Hermione replied, opening her beaded handbag. “There is something you can do that might help, though.”

Harry hadn’t come this far by second-guessing her. “Yeah, whatever you need.”

“I could use an object, something important to you, or something you have very strong feelings about. I know most of your emotions about this place are negative and I don’t think that should matter much, but I’d prefer it if you could find something that inspires fond memories.” She looked up from her handbag sympathetically. “I do realise it’s a tall order…”

The first thing Harry thought of was the letters his friends had sent him over the summers. Many of them were in his trunk, but he reckoned there might be something still underneath the floorboards upstairs. “Does it have to be very old?”

“Yes, and unrelated to us. It should be something that’s yours, or that you made your own. Something you consider _belonging_ to you, which I know is a broad distinction…” Hermione chewed on her lower lip. “I’m not explaining this well at all, am I?”

“No, I think I get it,” Harry said. He had an idea, though he knew what he’d thought of could easily be gone for good.

Hermione looked towards the living room. “I’m going to start setting up; it’s going to take long enough without dawdling. Ron, I’ll need your help.”

The two of them went into the living room to prepare. Harry glanced back towards the door and saw that Scott was gone. There was a creak from overhead that Harry recognised as the sound of his old door, so Scott must have gone up to watch out the windows.

There was just enough light from the street coming through the small window over the front door that Harry could see, though everything seemed to be made of contrasting shadow. He ran his hand along the wall until it encountered the door to his old cupboard. Checking the locks, he opened it and leaned inside before lighting his wand.

It had been cleaned, as he’d expected, though surprisingly not every trace of his stay had been removed. His old camp bed was sitting on its end, shoved against the back of the space, and the drywall still had the faded marks of his old crayon drawings. He’d taken most everything else with him when he’d moved to the second bedroom upstairs, but he wondered…

He started to reach down to move the camp bed when Ginny’s voice startled him; he hadn’t realised she’d been right behind him in the dark. “What is all this?” she asked, staring at the childish drawings on one of the bare wooden studs.

“Some of my old things,” Harry said, moving the camp bed out of the way.

“You used to sleep on _that?”_ Ginny looked with revulsion at the rusty, dishevelled old thing.

“Well, yeah. I mean, a regular bed wouldn’t fit in here.” Harry bent down and tried to get his hand in the space between the bottom stud and the wall. He quickly discovered that it was a bit harder now that he wasn’t a small child. His hand simply wouldn’t fit. “Here, I’ll move and you try to reach down in there for me, there’s—…” He lost his train of thought when he saw her expression.

“They made you sleep in here? When you were little?” she said in a voice that was surprisingly even given that her entire face was stiff with rage.

“Yeah, but…” He trailed off, not sure what to say. He didn’t want to defend the Dursleys, but he also didn’t want to set Ginny off. And he reckoned that telling her the truth — that he didn’t think much about it anymore because he didn’t like the way it made him feel — wouldn’t go over so well, either. “…Look, it was ages ago.”

“You were a _little boy!_ And they _locked_ you in a _cupboard!”_ Ginny said incredulously, jabbing her wand at the locks. “Harry, can’t you see how wrong that is?!”

He sort of did when she said it like that, and he also still sort of didn’t, because that was just how his life had been and it wasn’t like he could change it now. “I know, but, it’s done with, all right? We really need to be getting on with this.”

She stared at him, face flushed, for a few seconds longer. Then she nodded, taking a deep, calming breath (and Harry wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d escape a discussion later). “What did you need?”

“Down there, at the bottom of the wall there’s this gap. I can’t get my hand in anymore, it’s been so long.”

Ginny squeezed past him and knelt down. Her petite fingers slid neatly into the space and she moved her hand about, blindly searching. “What am I looking for?”

“You should feel it, if it’s there. It might not be,” Harry said, feeling disappointed. For all he knew it had been vacuumed up years ago. Aunt Petunia had always been obsessive with the hoover.

“I’ve got something,” Ginny said suddenly. She withdrew her hand, fingers curled around a small object. “Oh, it’s a cute little dog!”

Harry took it from her, the memories flooding back. It was the Scottie dog piece from Monopoly, the game being yet another birthday present for Dudley — Harry couldn’t remember what year it had been. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had done their utmost to ensure Dudley’s undeserved victory, but there was a lot of luck involved in Monopoly. The second Dudley had ended up on the Jail space was the second the game and all its pieces had been upended in a tantrum that had only ended with a hurried journey to one of his favourite restaurants. Alone in the house, Harry had found the Scottie dog discarded beneath the first stair. He’d felt sorry for it in the way a young child feels sorry for objects, fostering an intense empathy for the inanimate. After all, Harry had been castoff beneath the stairs, too.

The little metal dog had been his companion for countless lonely nights in the cupboard and days at the edge of the school playground. They’d been on many adventures together within the small confines of Harry’s life. Sometimes Scottie explored the cupboard, fighting off spiders and dust bunnies. Sometimes he guarded the door, warding against the monsters who prowled somewhere out in the dark house. And sometimes he was a special search dog who could find Harry’s parents.

He’d hidden Scottie in the wall the same way he hid anything he considered precious, always aware that Dudley would covet whatever Harry liked, no matter how pathetic it was. Then, eventually, had come all the uproar surrounding his eleventh birthday: his new room, meeting Hagrid, going to Hogwarts. He’d grown older and forgotten his little friend, which was just as well. He didn’t have that sort of imagination anymore, the kind that was required to bring Scottie to life in mind of a lonely kid.

Harry told all of this to Ginny as he turned the metal figure over in his hand. “I didn’t expect to find it, to be honest.” He started to say more and abruptly stopped when he saw her expression. Her eyes were huge and glistened wetly in the wandlight. “Oh, don’t… Gin, don’t _cry_ …”

“It’s what people do when something’s sad, you prat,” she retorted. Next thing he knew, she was hugging him tightly.

He returned the hug, not really sure what was going on but enjoying the contact anyway.

The stairs over their head began to thud as Scott descended the staircase. Harry released Ginny and stepped out in time to catch Scott as he headed for the kitchen.

“See anything?” Harry asked.

“Not yet,” Scott said as he went by.

In the living room, Hermione was carefully drawing runes on the floor with her wand. Harry happily imagined Aunt Petunia coming back to find her spotless carpet permanently marked with magic symbols. The electric fire had once again been removed to make way for a real fire, in which sat a bubbling cauldron which Ron was slowly stirring.

“I’m almost ready,” Hermione said, looking up when Harry came in. “Did you find anything useful?”

“Yeah, this should do,” Harry said, showing her the Scottie dog.

Hermione frowned curiously. “I didn’t know you were fond of Monopoly. Have you played with Scott and Kylie?”

“No, I’ve never played at all. I just found it after Dudley chucked it. It’s one of my toys,” he told her. “That will work, right?”

Hermione didn’t seem to be listening; she was looking past him to Ginny. The two girls were silently communicating via their aghast expressions and Harry didn’t like it. It was sort of a stupid thing to want, considering where they were and why, but he didn’t want it all to be about him. It was supposed to be a _mission_ , not a chance for everyone to pity him.

“Will it work or not?” he said insistently, getting angry at the way Hermione’s eyes were going all shiny and getting angry at himself for being angry.

“You know they locked him in that cupboard?” Ginny burst out. “That was his room!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Harry interjected before Hermione could produce words to go along with her appalled visage. Ron had stepped back from the cauldron and was warily observing the sudden tension.

“But—”

“Right now,” he added, cutting off Ginny’s protestation. “It doesn’t matter right now. Hermione, is this going to work or do I need to find something else?”

“I… I’m sure it will be fine,” she said carefully (though not without one last knowing look traded with Ginny that made Harry grit his teeth). She took the Scottie dog from him and placed it in the middle of a runic circle, halfway between the phylactery and another empty circle.

Scott leaned around the doorframe. “How are we doing?” he asked.

Hermione resumed marking the carpet. “We’re almost ready.”

“Good. Keep those Portkeys handy,” Scott reminded, before disappearing upstairs again.

Harry’s hand reflexively pressed against the left pocket of his coat. He was reassured by presence of his Portkey, made from his old Hungarian Horntail model.

“Does everyone remember the spell?” Hermione said, looking around and making sure they all nodded. “Ron, that should be ready.”

Ron waved his wand and levitated a small, smoking glass out of the cauldron. Hermione put on an oven mitt and plucked it out of the air.

“I don’t care for this part,” she muttered, beginning to pour it out in a wet line across the carpet.

Harry was feeling a bit squeamish about it, too, considering that was his blood she was soaking into the rug. Sophie had insisted that she collect it using some sterilised Muggle equipment, which Harry had very much preferred to the alternative of slicing his arm open. The use of blood struck him as being Dark, though Hermione had assured him that it didn’t have to be. It was definitely disgusting, though.

“Vernon would do his nut if he saw this,” Harry remarked, taking in the distinctly sinister tableau. It was basically a checklist of the Dursleys worst assumptions.

“It is somewhat more… well, _pagan_ than our usual spells,” Hermione agreed. “That’s just how some of the older magics are. I prefer the aesthetic of modern spell design. This is all a bit dramatic.” She took a step back, observing her handiwork.

“Is that it?” Harry asked, eager to get on with it.

“Yes, that’s all,” she said, and despite the circumstances she looked eager to try out the magic she and Sophie had devised. “Stand over here, in the third circle.”

Harry took his place at the end of the bloody line. He stood in one runic circle, with the Scottie dog in another circle at the middle of the line, and the phylactery in the last circle at the opposite side. For a moment, he felt sort of stupid standing there on bloody carpet, looking at a gameboard piece and a tube. But then, as he settled in, the hair on his arms stood up. He felt prickly all over, buzzing with static.

“Don’t move,” Hermione ordered as she hurried from the room.

“Had a fright, Harry?” Ron sniggered.

Harry reached up and brushed his palm over his hair; it was sticking out all over, almost free-floating. “Dare you to touch my finger,” he said, extending his hand towards Ron.

“Hang on!” Ginny exclaimed. She ran over to his other side. “At the same time.”

Harry held out both his hands. “All right: one, two, three—”

Ron and Ginny grabbed his left and right hand respectively and immediately all three of them flinched with the twin snaps of static discharge.

“Ow, fuck! Blimey,” Ron half-laughed, half-groaned as he shook his hand vigorously.

“Did you see it?” Ginny asked Harry, grinning as she rubbed at her finger.

Harry laughed, flexing his stinging fingers. “Damn, I hope it’s supposed to do this.”

Hermione came bustling back into the room with Scott at her heels. “I want to be sure the conduit is there,” she was saying, pointing to the bloody stripe on the carpet. “Is there a thread, or threads? Sophie said they should be ‘Solidary with harmony’.”

“I’d need more time to determine that,” Scott said. “I can tell you that there’s something here, it’s magic, and it’s tied to Harry.”

“Fair enough.” Hermione scrutinised her work, eyes searching every rune for a misstep. “…Then we’re ready.”

Harry wished she sounded a bit more certain. He started to ask if it was going to hurt, and then decided he’d rather not know. “Have at it,” he told Hermione, which he thought probably sounded brave.

“I’ll stand behind you, Harry. Ron, you take his left hand and Ginny, you take his right,” Hermione instructed.

Harry held out his hands again, grinning at them. “Have another go?”

Ron and Ginny were much slower to take his hands this time. Again, the shock of it made both of them wince.

Hermione blinked reflexively at the sparks. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, which did nothing to bolster Harry’s confidence. She went around and took her place behind Harry. “Ouch! That really smarts… All right, I’m going to start the reaction. Then Ron, and Ginny last. Whatever happens, we mustn’t let go, or cross the circle. Understood?”

“What happens if we do?” Ron wanted to know.

“I haven’t the foggiest. So, don’t. You are ready, Harry?”

He tried to see her over his shoulder but couldn’t turn his head that far. “Ready for _what?”_

“…Well, we’ll see, won’t we.” She took a deep breath. _“Venacorpi Contexo!”_

Instantly, every muscle in Harry’s body tensed, tightening until he felt frozen in place. His hands curled into fists, toes knotted at the end of his shoes; his jaw clenched until his teeth began to ache. Blackness stole into the edges of his vision.

Ginny saw his distress. “Harry?” she called out in concern. “Hermione, why can’t he answer?”

“I don’t know! Just don’t cross the circle!” Hermione said nervously.

 _“Venacorpi Contexo!”_ Ron incanted.

A deep, unnerving hum filled the room. The runic circles and the line of blood were now glowing a dark and violent red, tinting the room with hellish light. Harry could only move his eyes. He watched as the glow intensified. The humming seemed to come from within himself, rattling him down to his very bones. He had no idea what was happening. The pain of being so tense worsened, and he reckoned it would soon be unbearable.

Then, the next sensation took him over. It started as a pressure in his chest; sort of like being deep underwater. It grew until he could barely breathe. His ears popped, sharp and painful. He struggled to inhale through his nose. It was as if a great wind was stealing his breath, but there no wind at all. He was stuck tight against nothing, squeezed between invisible fingers.

“Now, Ginny!” Hermione called out.

“Just hang on, Harry!” Ginny told him. _“Venacorpi Contexo!”_

Just when he thought he could not possibly endure another second in such a state, that he must surely pass out or completely rupture, something burst from his chest. He could feel it slipping through his pores, slimy and hot. Acrid sweat rolled down his face; his shirt was almost instantly soaked through. He forced himself to keep his eyes open despite the sting, and saw a roiling black mist seeping out of his clothes.

It spiralled across the room like a demented flock of birds, following the bloody line on the carpet. At first, it moved slowly; it seemed almost hesitant, resisting some sort of pull. When it hit the halfway point and passed over the Scottie dog it picked up speed. Finally, it coiled up into a seething ball of ink and then shot with the force of a bullet into the phylactery, sending the vial spinning against the sofa.

The demonic light went out like a snuffed candle. Whatever had been holding him up vanished in the same instant, and Harry limply collapsed onto the floor.

The buzzing in his ears took a second to fade. He found himself with his cheek pressed against the carpet. Hands tugged at his back, rolling him over. Sound returned to him in a rush.

“Harry! _Harry!”_ Ginny said frantically, fingers cool against his face.

He tried to get his mouth to cooperate, but his jaw was still painfully cramped. He reached up with a shaking hand to weakly pat Ginny’s shoulder and give Ron and Hermione a thumbs up.

Ginny sighed in relief. “God, you scared me.” She ran a gentle hand down the side of his face. “Why does everything always happen to you?”

Hermione was staring at the phylactery. “Oh, thank goodness. It worked.”

Harry regained enough of his strength to lever himself into a sitting position. Each lungful of air was a struggle, and he gasped and swallowed until his breathing eased. The phylactery lay on the one of the settee cushions. Instead of its usual soft red glow, it had turned dark and muddy, clearly contaminated. He pressed a hand to his chest, making sure there wasn’t a gaping hole there. He was so soaked in sweat it felt like he’d had a quick shower and forgot to dry off.

Ron helped Harry to his feet. “Fucking hell, Harry. That looked bloody awful!”

“Yeah, it felt bloody awful, too,” Harry replied. He studied the phylactery, not caring for the idea that something so ugly had been inside of him. Of course, it was better out than in.

“It’s in there, now,” Hermione said, standing alongside of him.

Harry drew his wand. “And it’s not a regular Horcrux?”

“Destroy it,” she said coldly.

Harry pointed his wand straight at the churning, tainted vial. _“Reducto!”_ he snarled.

The phylactery exploded, showering Aunt Petunia’s white sofa with blood and a little piece of Tom Riddle’s soul.


	43. Probabilistic Modelling in Semi-Deterministic Space

**43**

**Probabilistic Modelling in Semi-Deterministic Space**

\---

_P(A|B) = P(A ∩ B)/P(B)_

\--- 

Harry felt like he could sleep for a century. The spell had drained the piece of Riddle’s soul out of him and taken all his energy with it. He couldn’t rest, though. They had to cover their tracks and then leave, and quickly. The Death Eater they’d disabled wouldn’t go unmissed forever.

“Just go around the edges, a Severing Charm should do it,” Hermione was saying to Ron and Ginny.

The three of them were cutting the carpet with the intent of pulling it up so it could be destroyed, along with the settee. Harry was a bit disappointed that Aunt Petunia wouldn’t come back to find magic runes burnt into her immaculate flooring. Not that she would appreciate the loss of her carpet entirely, either.

He bent down and pocketed the Scottie dog. He must have tapped into his childhood attachment, because he felt like the game piece didn’t deserve to be left behind after all the help it had been.

It looked like the others had the carpet well in hand, so he went into the kitchen to check with Scott. The Kharadjai was peering into the back garden, silhouetted against the faint light from the window.

“Still all right?” Harry said.

“Yeah,” Scott said shortly. His tension was palpable.

“What is it?”

Scott was slow to answer. “…I don’t know.”

Harry looked into the back garden and saw nothing but snow and the shed. Still, Scott was making him uneasy. “We’re almost done.”

“Good.” Scott’s finger tapped idly against the trigger guard of his M4.

“Is it the shape?” Harry guessed.

Scott tilted his head back in forth in a silent ‘so-so’. “Partially. But why… would they have one guy? After the Hollow, after the bank. After we were already here. It’s sloppy. It’s too easy.”

“They’ve always been sloppy,” Harry pointed out.

“Then why haven’t they learned anything?”

Harry looked out the window again, but there was still nothing. “You think we’ve made a mistake?”

“We didn’t have a choice. We had to get this done, and this was our best option.”

“They’ve just about finished, but I can tell them we’ve got to hurry.”  
  
Scott wasn’t listening. “But if they know we’re here, why haven’t they jumped us?” he muttered. “Where are they? Unless…” He went utterly still.

Harry shifted nervously, bringing his wand up. “Scott?”

Scott’s head snapped around. “Portkey, _now—”_

There was the sound of a tremendous shattering. Harry felt something sharp cut a hot line across the back of his neck, and then he felt nothing at all.

***---~**~---***

Scott came to on the kitchen floor. Something shifted beneath the palms of his hands when he moved, the clinking sound distinctive.

 _Broken glass_ , he thought sluggishly. From what? Where was he? Why couldn’t he fucking _think?_

Feeling came back to his limbs in a sudden rush, along with clarity. He was on the floor of the wrecked kitchen of the Dursleys. He must have been hit by something.

A Stunner. It had to be. From the looks of it, an incredible barrage of them, enough to rip through the windows and shatter half the house. The cabinets up on the wall were gone, scattered somewhere towards the hall. Not just Stunners, then. Blasting Curses, probably, to create more avenues of fire. Most of the back wall was gone. From his position on the floor, Scott could see down the hallway to the front door, which had been torn off its hinges.

An ambush. Well planned, well executed. And patient; they had waited to get into position, taken their time. Scott didn’t know at what point they had become aware of the intrusion, but it didn’t matter.

He had seconds to respond. He had to get the Primes out. The Portkeys were the only chance to salvage things. The OpFor were arrayed in a pincer formation — they’d hit the front and back simultaneously. They had to be careful advancing, or they’d cross their own lines of fire. So that bought a few seconds more.

He rolled over until he was against the cupboards below the sink. His hands dove into his duffel bag and grasped the right cylinders — he knew them by touch alone. The first was a flashbang, which he lobbed up and over the sink, out into the snowy night. The resulting explosion lit the house and yard brilliantly for a fraction of a second, the deafening crack echoing off neighbouring houses. Next went two smoke grenades, one to the left and the other to the right. They began to hiss, thick grey smoke billowing out until the kitchen was quickly suffused with it.

He heard coughing outside. Crawling along the debris-strewn linoleum, he tossed another flashbang in the general direction of the noise. He couldn’t risk throwing a frag, not until he knew where his Primes were.

The coughing stopped after the detonation of the flashbang. He heard shouts from the backyard and the distinctive sound of a shattering window from what he thought was upstairs. Spells began to cut through the smoke, most of them giving off the glaring red of Stunners. They popped shallow craters into the walls like the impact of fists; drywall showered onto Scott.

Harry was only an arm’s length from Scott, face and hands painted bright through the smoke as Scott scanned the room in infrared. Scott quickly crawled towards him and shoved Harry’s hand into the pocket with the Hungarian Horntail Portkey. Harry instantly disappeared, and Scott breathed slightly easier. His Priority One was safe, and the enemy hadn’t thought of Portkeys. Not yet, anyway.

Rising to his knees, Scott peered over the top of the kitchen sink. There were at least seven Death Eaters cautiously approaching the house through the backyard; Scott spotted three more on the ground, victims of the flashbangs. One of them was pointing his wand towards the kitchen. With his head raised, Scott could feel a strong breeze on his face, and realised the Death Eater was casting something to blow the smoke out of the house.

He set his M4 on the edge of the countertop and began to fire, beginning with the casting enemy. Two shots caught the Death Eater in the chest and they collapsed into the snow. Scott traversed left, placing his shots carefully as the approaching force scattered in alarm. He got off six more shots before a Blasting Curse ripped into the cabinets to his right and destroyed half his cover, fragments of woods bouncing off the ceiling and at least two embedding themselves in Scott’s right arm.

Ignoring the sting, he stood and sprinted around through the dining room, avoiding the narrow hall to the front door, which was a death trap, and intending to come up behind anyone moving through the living room towards the kitchen. He ducked low as he came around the doorway, weapon ready. He nearly ran straight into a Death Eater who was trying to flank Scott’s last position in the kitchen. The man had his hands out, blindly groping through the smoke for the edge of the door.

Scott stepped around him. Releasing his M4 and drawing one of his pistols, he whipped the pistol handle against the back of the man’s head with a painful crack. Before the Death Eater could go limp to the floor, Scott put one arm around his neck and held him as a human shield, using his shoulder to support his firing arm. There were three other Death Eaters in the room, wands held out as they made their way uncertainly through the smoke and darkness (Scott assumed the wands were lit). Two Stunners hit the man Scott was holding as he opened fire, quickly clearing the room. He shoved his human shield forward and put the last round in the magazine through the back of the man’s head.

He didn’t take the time to reload — he could hear movement in the kitchen as the Death Eaters in the backyard closed the gap. Scott cut through the foyer, hurling a third flashbang down the hallway to explode in the kitchen. He reached down to grab another out of his duffel bag, only to realise that at some point a glancing hit from a Severing Charm had neatly snipped the strap of the bag and left Scott with a shallow gash across his ribs and no additional ammunition.

He dove into the living room as another fusillade of spells, this time from the front yard, tore into the house. Between the light show and the smoke, the Dursley residence looked like it was in the midst of some demented, deadly game of laser tag.

The living room was demolished. Anything that wasn’t solidly constructed had been shattered, save for a clock on the mantle which had somehow escaped destruction. Ron was unconscious near the fireplace, Ginny only a few feet away. Scott moved as fast as he could across the floor and quickly sent them on their way as more spells flew over his head, crashing into the far wall and collapsing most of it. At this rate the house would be reduced to its bare studs.

He couldn’t find Hermione.

She should have been in the living room. The carpet and the couch were gone, so it seemed that she had finished with the evidence. Either that, or both had been obliterated by the assault. Where the fuck was she? He blinked, switching back to the visual spectrum, wondering if she were covered in something that made her hard to see in infrared. But between the smoke, the multi-coloured glare of spells shooting overhead and the dark of night, he couldn’t make anything out.

Maybe she was in the hall. Maybe she had been going to check on him and Harry. Scott spun around on his knees and started to scrabble back towards the front door when a Stunner struck him in the chest. His vision greyed and his limbs gave out; he fell back to the bare floor. It took him a couple seconds to shake it off. They were seconds he didn’t have.

Death Eaters came through the ragged remnants of the front door. Scott held his ground, taking a knee and firing. The first one tumbled into the stairs and didn’t rise. The second fell back outside, hot blood burning brightly against the doorpost.

Scott’s counterfire had pinpointed his location, and spells converged on his position. He blocked another Stunner and ducked as a Killing Curse flared over his head. But he was taking hits: two Severing Charms slashed open his left knee and shoulder. He staggered sideways, trying to get away from the larger holes in the wall when a Blasting Curse caught him right in the torso.

The detonation smashed him violently into the corner of the wall as his harness shredded and heat scorched over his chest and stomach. He felt a warm trickle soaking down his pantleg as he struggled to breathe; either he was bleeding heavily or the compression of the shockwave travelling through his body had caused his bladder to release.

He didn’t see Hermione in the hallway, but at this point that didn’t mean much. Using his right hand and feet, he awkwardly propelled himself up the stairs.

He stumbled onto the second storey landing and straight into another Death Eater. Scott shoved the barrel of his M4 into the man’s stomach and was pulling the trigger when his gun suddenly Transfigured into a bouquet of flowers. He immediately dropped them and hit the Death Eater in the throat hard enough to knock the man to the floor. He slammed the heel of his boot into the man’s temple until the skull caved in.

 _“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_ someone shouted at the bottom of the stairs.

Scott didn’t so much dodge as just fall to the floor, but it worked. As their casualties mounted, the Death Eaters were trying progressively less to take Scott alive. He pulled his second pistol and shot the first masked face he saw coming up the stairs square in the forehead.

“Edgar! Fuck, he’s dead!”

“Someone kill this bastard!”

“Move! Move!”

Scott had just finished reloading his first pistol as he pushed himself along floor towards Dudley’s room when one of his own flashbangs landed beside him.

He immediately covered his eyes, but the blast still numbed him from head to toe. He felt himself falling back against the carpet, all sense of balance disrupted as his inner ear shorted out. Vaguely aware that his right hand was aligned with the stairwell, he fired blindly, still trying to reach the cover of Dudley’s room. His gun was suddenly jerked from his hand.

A huge fist closed on Scott’ collar and pulled him to his feet. He blinked and came face to face with the biggest Death Eater he’d ever seen. Scott didn’t often find himself looking up at people.

“Thorfinn’s got him!” someone yelled from the top of the stairs. “We’ve got him!”

The big blond Death Eater’s hands tightened on Scott’s throat. “Not so tough without your Muggle wands, are you?” he rumbled.

Scott replied by gripping Thorfinn’s left hand and rotating it a full 360 degrees.

_“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHGGGG—!!!”_

Thorfinn staggered away, face chalk white with agony. The moment he was released, Scott reached for his second handgun, but an entire volley of Stunners from the Death Eaters now gathered at the top of the stairs made the world go black.

Drowsily, he felt himself be lifted up. His head lolled onto his chest as he was dragged towards the stairs. Someone tugged his pistol from his shoulder holster.

“Let me have him,” a Death Eater was pleading, voice rough and filled with rage. “Come on. No one needs to know.”

“You know who wants him! Your vengeance isn’t worth my life. You don’t like it, take it up with the Dark Lord.”

Scott groggily supposed he hadn’t done much to endear himself to the people who were now his captors. The Death Eater who had taken Scott’s pistol was standing next to him, holding it in a limp, inexpert grip. Scott slipped his hand around the other man’s and managed to get his finger through the trigger guard. He put a round through the man’s shoe, blowing off two of his toes, and as the Death Eater screamed and fell to the floor the others began to pummel Scott until he at last lost consciousness.

***---~**~---*** 

Harry felt as if he were going to be sick. He wasn’t sure why, but his head was pounding and his neck throbbed and his hand hurt.

He sat up and looked down at his left hand. It was clenched tight. He opened it slowly, grimacing at the sharp pain. Blood began to run down his wrist. His fingers unfurled, he found himself staring at his old model of the Hungarian Horntail. It was splashed with red, its spines having perforated his palm.

His Portkey. The ambush!

He didn’t remember using the Portkey. The last thing he could recall was talking to Scott in the kitchen, followed by the world upending. He pushed himself to his feet, head swimming. He was in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place. Relief flooded him when he saw Ginny’s familiar hair, the rest of her out of sight around the edge of the sofa. Turning, he spotted Ron also on the floor, near the doorway.

Harry knew no one had Enervated him, so he didn’t know how much time had passed. He reached for his wand, only to find it missing. For a second he thought he might have left it at the Dursleys’, but then he spotted part of it sticking out from underneath the sofa. Grabbing it, he staggered over to where Ginny lay and cast the Reviving Spell. She must have taken at least a partial hit from more than one Stunner, because he had to cast it twice and it still didn’t work very well.

She groaned, hands pushing feebly against the carpet. Harry bent down to pick her up and in the process became aware that he was still far too weak to try, so instead he put an arm around her shoulders and used his weight to pull her upwards.

She steadied herself on the sofa arm. “Harry?” she mumbled, blinking blearily.

“I’m here,” he said, stumbling towards Ron. He felt like his feet and head had been replaced with sandbags.

Ron came awake with much greater alacrity. “Are we dead?” he said the second his eyes opened. He relaxed when he sat up and saw the room. “Shit, that was close.”

Ginny kept rubbing at her eyes, like if she did it enough she’d wake up for real.

Harry went to go look behind the sofa for Hermione when he heard Ginny gasp behind him. He looked back at her. “What?”

Her eyes were wide. “Harry, you’re bleeding,” she said, struggling to her feet.

“Huh?”

“You’ve got a cut across the back your neck,” Ginny told him. Her cool fingers gingerly touched the sides of his neck. She cast a few spells and Harry could feel the skin on his neck tightening. “It’s stopped. Just try not to look too far down,” she said.

Ron must not have taken many hits, as he appeared more alert than either Harry or Ginny. “Where’s Hermione?” he said, going to look behind the settee.

The longer Harry stood, the more the fog in his head was dissipating. “Scott’s not here, either,” he realised. The first tinges of panic began to gnaw at him. “Split up, let’s check the house. Maybe they ended up in a different room.”

Ron was the first out the door, his footsteps frantic. Harry went downstairs, but the house was still and dark. He lit every room — he even dispelled Hermione’s Imperturbable to check in his and Ron’s old room — and finally ended up in the kitchen, having found nothing. He didn’t know if Ginny and Ron had found anything elsewhere, but he had the horrible, sinking feeling that they hadn’t.

Hermione and Scott weren’t there.

He trudged back upstairs with the thought that they might have arrived there in the interim, but any hope he held was fading fast. He met Ginny just outside the door to the drawing room.

“No one?” she said, though the look in her eyes made it clear she wasn’t expecting a comforting answer.

Harry shook his head mutely.

Inside the drawing room, Ron was standing near the window with his head in his hands. He was so tense he was trembling. “What do we do?” he said. “Harry, tell me what to do.”

Harry’s mouth worked silently as he looked at the couch, the floor, the old mission board, anywhere but Ron. It was Harry’s fault. It was his sickness they’d gone to cure, gone and put themselves in harm’s way. All for him. The truth of it settled in his chest like a concrete block and he couldn’t speak around it.

“We just need a plan,” Ginny said, looking desperately between the two of them. “Come on, think! What about the car, can we Disapparate back to that? If we can find out where they’re going—”

Something big and black suddenly appeared in mid-air and crashed into the short table with a bang that sent Harry’s hands scrabbling for his wand. Ginny fell back into one of the chairs and Ron whirled away from the window with his wand at the ready.

It was a Death Eater. His black robes were tangled and his mask was askew. He was reaching out as if he were blind, one hand slapping against the table. Something fell out of his other hand and lay on the floor near Harry’s feet. It was a misshapen, lumpy handknitted hat, sized for a house-elf.

It was Hermione’s Portkey.

 _“EXPELLIARMUS!”_ Harry bellowed, pouring all his rage and shock and fear into the spell.

The Death Eater flew backwards and smashed into the Gringotts mission board, sending papers and photographs all over. He hit the wall hard and slumped in the wreckage of the board. He was still moving, though only feebly.

He didn’t have any time to recover; Ron grabbed him by the front of his robes and pinned him violently to the wall. _“Where is she?”_ Ron snarled right into the Death Eater’s face.

The Death Eater made some choking noises that might have been an attempt at an answer.

Harry was content to watch Ron strangle the interloper half to death, but fortunately Ginny was still using her brain. She jumped forward and tugged at Ron’s wrists. “If you kill him we won’t learn anything!” she said.

Ron released the man and turned away, hands fisted at his sides. He took two steps, turned back, kicked the Death Eater in the stomach, and then walked away again.

“Ron! He has to be able to speak!”

The Death Eater did a great deal of coughing, and then wheezed, “Thank you…”

Ginny’s wand was instantly pointed into one of the eyeholes in his mask. “I am not your friend,” she hissed. “Where’s Hermione?”

The Death Eater extended one trembling hand, waving it back in forth as if he were in total darkness. “W-who are you? Where am I?”

Harry roughly grabbed the Death Eater’s arm, pulling back his robes. There was no Dark Mark. Whoever the man was, he wasn’t a member of the inner circle.

“Get off me!” the Death Eater demanded, trying to pull away.

Harry planted a foot firmly on the man’s chest to stop his squirming and ripped the white mask off his head. The face beneath was unfamiliar, a man with thinning red hair and a wispy goatee. His eyes were wide with fear, darting all around, looking at nothing. They were unfocussed.

“You must have really knocked him a good one,” Ginny said quietly to Harry as they looked down at the Death Eater.

“No, I’ve seen that before,” Ron said, coming back to stand next to them. He glared at the Death Eater. “When Lila came by. She couldn’t look at me right.”

The Fidelius was still working its magic, then, even though the Death Eater had bypassed the perimeter. He couldn’t see where he was, or see any of them. He was hopelessly confused, utterly helpless.

 _“Incarcerous!”_ Harry bound the Death Eater and then Stunned him.

Ginny looked surprised, but stepped back. Ron, however, scowled at Harry. “He’s got to tell us where they took Hermione!” he said furiously.

“We can’t just thrash him—” Harry started to explain.

“I bloody well can!”

“No, because as soon as he susses out who we are and what’s going on, he’s not going to want to talk!” Harry told Ron, remembering the Death Eater at the petrol station. “Maybe he’ll tell us if you keep hitting him, but it’ll take too long.”

Ron was breathing hard, face twisted with emotion. “Well, what about…”

“What?”

Ron shot him a sideways glance, eyes bright and furious. “You know what.”

Harry did, then. “No, you have to… You have to want it. I’ve tried before. You have to want to hurt them just to do it.” Harry watched Ron’s jaw flex and knew what his friend was thinking. “Being angry won’t work. I tried, mate.”

“On who?” Ginny asked quietly.

“Bellatrix. Right after Sirius died.”

Ron very nearly lunged at him. _“She’s not dead!”_

The sudden sound of footsteps on the stairs made them all whirl around to face the door. Harry’s mouth went dry. Was he wrong about the Death Eater? Had the Fidelius somehow been broken? He was just preparing himself to Disapparate when Lila strode into the drawing room, Neville and Luna close behind her.

Lila halted when she saw the Death Eater. “What happened?” she said, studying their faces.

Harry lowered his wand, trying to breathe again. For a second he’d been certain that Voldemort was storming over the threshold.

“We got attacked. We woke up here, we don’t know what happened,” Ginny told her, and gestured at the Death Eater. “He came in with Hermione’s Portkey.”

Lila’s eyes flickered over the still Death Eater. “My brother?” she finally said.

The short silence that ensued was heavy and awkward and probably delivered the news as well as any words, but it seemed awful to just not answer. The problem was that none of them wanted to be the one to tell Lila what had happened. Harry certainly didn’t. Lila tended to be intimidating even in the most relaxed of moments, and this was anything but.

Ginny’s gaze darted to Harry for a split second, perhaps searching for support. “He hasn’t come back,” she said, bravely meeting Lila’s eyes.

Lila pulled her mobile out of her pocket and checked it. Her expression didn’t change and she put it back away, which told Harry everything he needed to know.

“They’ve got Hermione?” Neville said, horrified.

Harry had been so caught up in Lila’s arrival and breaking the news about Scott to her that he’d almost forgotten Neville and Luna had come in, too. “I’m glad you two are safe, anyway,” he said, raising one hand in solemn greeting.

Neville nodded, saying, “I wish we’d come sooner.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered this time. They ambushed us.” Harry’s Portkey sat discarded and bloody near the settee. “I reckon Scott shook off the Stunners and sent us back.”

“Tell me exactly what you remember,” Lila said.

Harry started to relate the events of the night thus far, but Ron erupted before he could.

“We don’t have time for this!” Ron pointed his wand at the Death Eater. “He knows where Hermione’s gone!”

“They don’t have a reason to kill her. Not when they don’t have Harry,” Lila said bluntly.

She was probably right, but Harry was thinking about the situation and the more he turned it over in his mind, the tighter the restrictions on their time seemed to be. He was struggling, fighting through his rage, his despair, his fear; fighting to think, to be rational, to be logical. This was the moment all those lessons, all those little examples scattered across the last year and a half, had been making Harry ready for. He had to _think._ So he thought, and the conclusion he reached struck him as funny, in a way, as it was what his heart preferred.

“This is our only chance,” he realised.

He hadn’t intended to speak aloud, and only recognised that he had when he saw everyone turning to look at him.

He braced himself. “This is our only chance,” he said again. “Right now. We can’t wait.”

“Why?” Lila prompted.

“I don’t think they’ll get anything out of Scott. I mean… we all know him. But Hermione doesn’t know Occlumency. All Riddle has to do is have a go at her mind.” Harry’s resolve hardened with every word. “I know if we rush in there and Riddle gets me, it’ll have all been for nothing. But if he finds out we’ve been at his Horcruxes, it’ll all be for nothing anyway. It’s got to be now.”

Harry looked at the faces of his friends, hoping they would be with him and at the same time hoping someone would tell him he was mad. Ginny’s eyes were locked to his, hard and blazing, and Harry knew she would go, whatever came next. Ron’s face was a conflicting mess, sick with worry and flushed with rage. He’d assault Azkaban if that was where Hermione was. Neville clearly had no idea what was happening, but didn’t look any less ready for that. Lila’s features were an icy mask of competence, which made Harry feel calmer, more prepared, just like Scott’s similar presence always had. And Luna, who couldn’t have understood what was happening any more than Neville, was serene. It was as if she had always known this moment would come, exactly as it had.

“He has to talk, first.” Lila gazed down, expressionless, at the Death Eater.

Harry had an idea about that. “I’m going to try something.” He pointed his wand at the Death Eater. “Here goes nothing…”

He was stopped when Neville suddenly spoke. “Harry! No, you… you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t ever…”

Harry caught on when he saw how pale Neville was. “I know, Nev, I’m not using that.”

Some of the tension went out of Neville’s stance. “Oh. R-right, yeah, I’ll just…” He ducked his head, embarrassed, and Luna leaned against his side.

Harry turned back to the Death Eater and found Ginny in his way. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she said. She looked at him with eyes that were supportive, but concerned.

Harry was momentarily confused before he realised she thought he intended to torture the Death Eater through other means. “No, the Imperius. I’m going to try the Imperius, he’ll have to take us then.”

Her eyes widened, and then narrowed with grim determination. “Well, I guess they’re all legal, now,” she said, stepping away.

“Do it,” Ron bit out.

Harry heard a sharp click from behind and knew without looking that Lila had just cocked something or the other, no doubt ready to fire should anything go wrong.

Harry didn’t know if the Death Eater had to be conscious or not, but he reckoned he’d give it a go as things were, first. It was, he thought with a pang, the sort of thing Hermione would probably know. _“Imperio!”_

The Death Eater twitched slightly.

“Wake up,” Harry said experimentally. When that garnered no response, he cast the Reviving Spell.

The Death Eater inhaled sharply, coming to. He tried to sit up but couldn’t, struggling against the ropes. “What—”

_“Imperio!”_

The most curious sensation overtook Harry; it was as if an invisible thread tied him to the Death Eater through his wand, like the man was a marionette on a string. He felt like he could direct the Death Eater without saying anything at all, could impose his will with a flick of his wand or even just a thought. It was an intoxicating feeling.

The Death Eater stilled, his face becoming relaxed.

Despite the sense of control, Harry still wasn’t certain he’d done it right. “Er… Tell me your name,” he said.

“Yorick Holland,” the Death Eater said easily.

So far, so good. “You and the others captured two of my friends. Where have they been taken?”

“I don’t know for certain, but they were most likely taken to Malfoy Manor to be kept with the other special prisoners,” Holland said calmly.

Harry didn’t know if he should feel relieved. Malfoy Manor was a less daunting target than Azkaban, but still nothing close to easy. “Do you know how to get there?”

“Yes.”

Lila pulled a notepad out from somewhere in her coat and tossed it down in front of Holland, along with a pencil. “I want a map of the Manor and the grounds, and a list of everyone inside,” she demanded.

“Do what she says,” Harry added.

“I can’t, my hands are tied,” Holland said, still placid.

Once freed, Holland began to sketch. Harry kept his wand ready, wary that the man was faking it, or might begin to fight. He remembered his own brief experience with the Imperius and didn’t trust the spell. After all, he had only the word of a mad Death Eater that the ability resist was so rare.

“I’ve never been inside the Manor,” Holland told them as he drew. “We aren’t usually allowed. Most prisoners are taken to the Ministry for processing, and I’ve only been to the Malfoy place twice.”

“Is it your headquarters?” Lila asked.

“Not mine. I look for Mudbloods in Diagon Alley.”

“Don’t say that word,” Harry ordered sharply.

“I look for Muggle-borns,” Holland corrected. “There really aren’t any left there. Word has it my group is to be reassigned.”

Lila studied him intently. “What were you doing in Surrey?”

“One of the traps had been sprung, is what I was told. It all happened very fast. We had a Floo call from the Manor and then were taken by Portkey to the neighbourhood.”

“Where was Riddle during all this?”  
  
“Who?”

“Your Dark Lord.”

“I’ve heard he’s been mostly at the Manor, though I can’t say for sure. His closest Death Eaters, those who are marked, are usually the only ones who go inside. Like I said, I’ve never been.”

“Then who oversaw the ambush?”

“It was Rahvalod’s idea.”

Lila crossed her arms. “Tell me about him.”

“I don’t know much,” Holland admitted. “I do know that the Dark Lord only recently came back to England; he’d been to the Continent, especially in the East. Rahvalod came from there, along with some others. I hadn’t crossed paths with him before today. Everything else I know is just rumour.”

“I want to hear it.”

“Rahvalod has a lot of odd ideas. He used to fight Muggles, or fight as a Muggle, something like that. But there’s been some problems with Muggles, or at least one in particular, and that’s why Rahvalod wasn’t shut out for talking about Muggles like he does.”

“Talking about them like what?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve heard most of the original Death Eaters more or less hate him.”

The longer Holland talked, the more frustrated Harry was getting with just how little the man knew about the organisation he was in. Why couldn’t they have ended with someone more informed as their captive? This sod was a bit farther up the chain than a Snatcher, but nowhere near Voldemort’s side. Whatever was going on with the Death Eaters whom Harry was familiar with remained aggravatingly unknown.

“Are you a pure-blood?” Harry angrily interjected.

“No, half-blood.”

Lila gave Harry a dubious glance. “Is this important right now?”

“Hold on. I want to know,” Harry said roughly. “You’re a half-blood. So am I. What are you doing, running around in an effing mask, pretending you’re so pure? Why do you believe in this shite?”

“I don’t, particularly,” Holland said. “But some of my mates joined up, and I can see which way the wind is blowing. All this blood nonsense won’t matter forever. It’s more important that we make a stronger wizarding world. After all, if the Dark Lord could take over so easily then it wasn’t much of a system, was it? He’s uniting us.”

“Yeah? And what about all the Muggle-borns? What about all the people getting killed, what about my mum and dad? They just don’t matter?” Harry coldly replied.

Holland opened his mouth to answer, but Lila interrupted. “It’s a stock argument for fascist ultranationalism,” she said tersely. “Don’t engage with the mindset.”

Harry supposed he was arguing with a man whose mind he was controlling, which seemed like a waste of time. “Shut up, Holland.” The man’s mouth immediately closed. “No, wait — tell us about Malfoy Manor.”

“It’s a large place, and it might be even larger on the inside. There’s an iron gate out front which leads to a path with a hedge on both sides. The gardens are very extensive, I’m sure I’ve only seen a fraction of them.”

Harry grabbed the map Holland had drawn. It was just a crude line drawing representing the entry to the Manor and portions of the gardens, but it was a lot more than they’d known a minute ago. There was a concise list of names, about half of which Harry already knew. He handed it to Lila.

She glanced at it, mouth thinning. “I want you to know that this is a very bad way to start an operation,” she said.

“What choice do we have?” Harry said, genuinely wanting to know. He’d take an alternative.

“We don’t.”

Harry would have preferred to have been wrong. He Stunned Holland and then turned to his friends. “Gather everything up. Anything we might need, and… those packs Scott had us put together. I don’t know when we’re coming back.”

Or ‘if’, which remained unsaid. The packs in question were Muggle backpacks stuffed with food, water and other accoutrements of survival. They were intended to be used in the event Grimmauld Place had to be abandoned, but Harry reckoned they could serve another use. There hadn’t yet been a mission designed to be long term enough to require bringing them; the failure state for most of their excursions had been immediate capture or death if they couldn’t return to Grimmauld, and most of the time they couldn’t carry much with them that wasn’t in Hermione’s handbag.

Harry froze in place, the most horrid realisation coming over him. _The Horcrux was still in Hermione’s handbag._

No one else seemed to have remembered that, yet. Within a few seconds the room had vacated as everyone went to prepare. After a moment of frenzied thought, Harry decided there wasn’t any point in bringing it up. There was nothing that could be done about it, not until they found Hermione. He just had to hope that she still had it, or, if the handbag was found by the enemy, that Scott’s strongbox was enough of a barrier to delay discovery of the Horcrux.

Of course, it wouldn’t matter if Riddle forced his way into Hermione’s memories.

Harry checked an inner pocket of his coat and found his Invisibility Cloak still stuffed into it. What else? The sword? He hated to risk it falling into enemy hands, but they would probably need it. That was still downstairs.

He ran out of the drawing room towards the stairs, stopped, and doubled back. He ducked into his room and grabbed the backpack off the floor near the dressing table — Ginny was rooting through her things, tossing winter clothes onto the bed along with her backpack. Harry took the stairs down two at a time and arrived in the kitchen just as Luna and Neville were settling around the table as Lila dug through the cupboards.

“I know it’s hard, but you need to eat now,” Lila was saying. “Ravioli isn’t bad cold.”

Harry made a beeline for the wall behind the table where Scott’s bags were. The sword was in its scabbard, resting in the corner. One of the bags was gone, but the map bag and two others remained. Harry opened the nearest one and began to dig through it. It was full of pouches, ammunition magazines and tins, cleaning supplies, a couple first aid kits and an assortment of grenades. Harry hesitated, one hand in the side pouch where some of the grenades were stored. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be mucking about with this sort of stuff. Scott hadn’t trained him to use explosives. But it was an emergency.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Lila was still preoccupied with food, and then quickly stuffed two of every kind of grenade into his backpack. He also took a few boxes of 12 gauge shells and the 9mm handgun Scott had shown him how to use, along with several loaded magazines for it. He knew he’d do better with his wand, but it was good to have options.

“Harry, you need to eat something,” Lila said.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, beginning to dig through the second bag.

“No, you need to eat. Do it now, before we go.”

“I’m not hungry.”

A loud thunk from the table made him look up. Lila had banged an open tin of chilli with a spoon in it down in front of him, and was fixing him with the exact same stare he had once received over his first slice of birthday cake. “Eat.”

Harry decided it would be smarter to acquiesce than argue (especially as he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just force feed it to him). He wolfed down the tepid contents of the tin, barely tasting anything.

He continued to sort through Scott’s remaining arsenal as Lila foisted food onto Ron and Ginny. There was a lot of equipment and weaponry that Harry didn’t think he could use well enough to bother hauling. Better to leave the rest to Lila. He left the duffel bags, grabbed the sword and then just stood there for a moment, trying to work out how he was going to take it with him. It needed a strap or something. Why hadn’t they thought of this sooner? He supposed that out of their usual group, only Scott could use a sword with any skill, and he had plenty of blades already (and he had told Harry that it would be much, much easier to learn to effectively use a firearm than a sword, to the point that there simply wasn’t enough time to teach Harry to wield it).

He settled for stuffing the sword back into the drawstring bag it had come in. He found that he could carry it with the backpack by sliding the sword through a couple of the straps so that the hilt caught. It seemed to stay well enough, though time would tell.

When he finished, everyone was ready; or at least as ready as they were going to be in so short a span. Harry led them all back upstairs to where the Death Eater was still slumped on the floor. Harry woke the man and placed the Imperius on him once more.

“We’ll have to take a couple trips back and forth,” Harry said. “I’ll have him take me, first, and Lila can follow with her… however she does it. All right?” He turned to Holland. “Take me to Malfoy Manor.”

Holland reached out to grip Harry’s hand, and then the two of them turned and Disapparated into the unknown.

***---~**~---*** 

With a pop, Remus appeared outside the worn brick warehouse in Exeter. He was breathing unevenly, one hand pressed tight against his side. He staggered over to the entrance and then stood beneath the dim yellow light set over the door, waiting.

It was another moment before more sounds signalled the arrival of the others. Tonks Apparated in first, closely followed by Bill, who was supporting another wounded person.

“Everyone else made it back to headquarters,” Tonks said as she approached Remus. “Are you still bleeding?”  
  
“Not much. It’s shallow, I’ll be all right,” he replied, feeling the wetness beneath his palm. “How is he?”

He was referring to the boy leaning heavily against Bill, one of his legs twisted and swollen. “We need to see to him,” Bill said.

“It’s not that bad,” Dean panted, trying to put on a brave face. He wasn’t entirely successful, given how much pain was in his eyes.

Tonks was casting spells on Remus’s side, trying to get the bleeding to stop entirely. “Damn! Come on, get in, get in. I can’t see what I’m doing out here.”

Remus limped up the stairs as Tonks helped Bill move Dean. He pushed through the heavy metal door and held it open as Dean was carried over to the nearby sofa.

Remus sank wearily into a chair as Tonks and Bill did their best to see to Dean. The commotion was attracting the attention of the safehouse residents: sheets hanging over doorways rustled as curious faces poked out into the corridor.

“Sophie? Sophie, someone’s hurt!” a woman called out.

Sophie came rushing down the hall, hurrying past Remus and brushing Tonks and Bill out of the way with impatient little flutters of her hands. “Excuse me, excuse me… You’ll be okay,” she said after inspecting Dean for a moment. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Dean Thomas,” Dean told her, face slicked with sweat as he tried to breathe evenly.

“I’m Sophie, nice to meet you,” Sophie said as she dug through a pack at her waist and then plunged a needle into the top of Dean’s thigh.

Dean went limp with relief. “More of that, please,” he mumbled, sinking into the cushions.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Sophie said. “I’ll hold his leg, we need to take him to the back.”

Tonks and Bill carried Dean down the hall towards the unfinished end of the offices. Remus waited a moment, then braced himself and got back on his feet to follow.

The encounter outside Sheffield had gone better than they’d had any right to expect. The Snatchers had arrived outside the town expecting to corner their regrouping targets and instead were blindsided by the sudden ambush. The ensuing fight had been short and brutal, and the Snatchers had fled, leaving the Order with a wounded Dean Thomas and a relieved Ted Tonks. Nymphadora’s reunion with her father had been unfortunately brief; Dean had been taken to the Exeter safehouse for treatment and Ted had gone with Moody to answer whatever questions he could.

Remus didn’t know why Harry had sent Sophie to Exeter, if that was what happened. The woman might have been acting of her own volition, but it seemed more likely that Harry was doing what he could for the Order. Remus still wasn’t certain if Lila and Sophie answered to Harry. Surely they must, or else they wouldn’t have been entrusted with Dumbledore’s secret mission. Remus remained disappointed and, if he were honest with himself, a bit jealous that he hadn’t been similarly trusted. He did his best not to indulge in the feeling.

Whatever the case, Sophie had been a godsend for the refugees, using an odd but highly effective combination of magic and Muggle medicine. Remus was familiar enough with the Muggle sphere that Sophie’s techniques didn’t strike him as peculiar like they did for most of the other Order members. He could see the value in the approach.

He sat patiently in the chair whilst Sophie saw to Dean, eyes closed as he flirted with sleep. He was just tired enough that it was hard to keep focussed, but not so tired he could fall asleep in such an uncomfortable chair. Deciding he was pointlessly denying himself, he switched to the settee. His lacerated side ached, reminding him of how close he’d come to serious injury. The Order had been successful so far with hit and run tactics, but only in the sense they’d managed to avoid getting killed. The safehouses kept getting fuller and the Order kept running itself ragged and the Death Eaters still seemed as numerous and powerful as ever. At this rate, everyone who an enemy of the state would be trapped behind a Fidelius until there was no one left to bring them food.

The fact was that they were left counting on a miracle. And if Harry couldn’t deliver it…

Remus was rescued from his ever-darkening ruminations when Tonks came down the hall. “He’s good, he’s fine,” she said before Remus could ask. “A few more potions and he should sleep it off. That Sophie’s good in a pinch, yeah? I asked her where Lila was, but she said she doesn’t know.”

That struck Remus as unlikely, and judging from Tonks’ sceptical expression she felt the same. “She did say she was busy,” he said, recalling Lila’s parting words.

“Harry and his bloody secrets,” Tonks groused. “Anyway, off with your top, luv, let’s have a look at you.”

Remus didn’t miss the curious eyes still looking at him from doorways. “Ah… In the back, perhaps,” he said, standing.

“Ooo, just for me, eh?” Tonks said with a wicked little grin. “All right, somewhere more _cosy_ , then.”

She was irrepressible, his Nymphadora, and he loved that about her. “I’ll try to stop bleeding long enough to entertain,” he said wryly.

In the back room, Tonks quickly checked over Remus’ injury and declared him fit enough to snog, which she proceeded to do. Sophie walked in and interrupted them, blushing slightly but still determined to do what she apparently saw as her job. Remus’ side was soon scabbed over and pink. It was a great relief that it didn’t hurt much, though it quickly started to itch. He refrained from scratching, well aware from his monthly changes what that would accomplish.

He and Tonks went back down the hall to regroup with Bill when Moody suddenly came stumping through the doorway to the offices.

Remus paused to greet him. “Any news?” he asked.

“Some good, some bad,” Moody replied.

“Yeah, same as always,” Tonks sighed. “All right, what’s the bad?”

Moody glanced at some of the poorly hidden people listening in, several of the door sheets fluttering as his fearsome visage made them retreat. “Not here.”

They convened in the back with Bill. “The kid’s asleep, and it looks like he’ll be fine,” Bill told Moody. “What’s the word?”

“We were right — most of the missing persons are in Azkaban. Your dad nearly ended up there himself a time or two,” Moody told Tonks. His expression darkened. “We haven’t got much chance of breaking in. Especially since the Dementors are playing nice with You-Know-Who.”

“Then what’s the good news?” Tonks said hopefully.

“We finally know where they’ve got their headquarters,” Moody said. “Malfoy Manor. Anyone who isn’t in Azkaban or dead has got to be there.”

“Do we know where it is?”

Remus knew the locations of most strongholds still belonging to the old guard of the pure-bloods were jealously kept secrets. The pure-blood elite had little trust for each other and even less for the rest of society. Knowing that Malfoy Manor was the enemy’s centre was only the first step.

“No. But if we can find it, and do it before they know we’re on to them…” There was a glint in Moody’s normal eye that made Remus think that the moniker ‘Mad-Eye’ might well predate his magical eyeball.

The possibilities were tantalizing, to be sure. Striking the enemy at the source, if successful, would be by far the most daring and effective the Order had been so far. Remus wasn’t blind to the many ways it could go horribly wrong, as well. They remained badly outnumbered. The Order had been slowly expanding thanks to the constant trickle of newcomers to the safehouses, but everyone had to be properly vetted. The Order had to know who could be trusted.

“Alastor… The sheer number of Snatchers we’ve encountered, even the Death Eaters alone—” he began.

“I know,” Moody interrupted. “We can’t get into a stand-up fight, we don’t have the staying power.”

“So it’s a sneak attack, then,” Tonks said, narrowing her eyes dramatically.

“It’s not anything until we know where it is,” Moody grunted.

“Dad’s been there, I’m almost positive,” Bill recalled.

Moody nodded. “Arthur’s been, but he used the Floo. He knows the house, which’ll be dead useful, but we’ll never get right inside. We need to find someone who knows the area.”

“There’s aren’t many of us who might have ever knocked on the Malfoy’s door,” Remus murmured, thinking it over.

“I have,” someone said.

Moody’s electric blue eye rolled up into his head to look straight out the back of his skull. One of the sheets that served as doors was pulled partially to the side behind him, a small, pale hand holding them open.

Moody turned around. “You have, have you?” he said with a surprising lack of bite. Remus understood his manner when the sheet was fully pulled to the side and revealed the slight form of Kylie.

Kylie nodded. She was staring at a point on the floor somewhere between all of them, and shaking slightly. “Yes.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got an Apparition license, luv?” Tonks said, her expression indicating she already knew the answer.

Kylie shook her head, still looking at the floor. “No. I’m sorry.”

Bill sighed. “It’s not your fault. You’re too young for Apparition, of course.”

“Have you been outside? Know any towns nearby, any landmarks?” Moody questioned.

“Okay, what is going on…?” Sophie came bustling out of one of the rooms and positioned herself behind Kylie, placing her hands protectively on the girl’s shoulders.

“We found out where the Death Eaters have their headquarters, and she’s been there,” Moody said bluntly. “If we’re going to find it anytime soon, we need her help.”

Sophie’s eyes widened. “At…” she pulled a Muggle mobile out of one pocket and glanced at it. “…Malfoy Manor? Did I say that right?”

“How do you know that?” Moody said suspiciously.

“Because Lila told me. And you shouldn’t go there, because… you shouldn’t.” Sophie nodded sharply, as if that had been appropriately final.

Remus could put the rest together himself. “Is Harry going there? Is he there _now?”_

Sophie did not look pleased by the question. “Well…”

“Listen, Miss,” Moody growled. “I don’t know what you’re about, but I’m sure you know what _we’re_ about. Don’t try to shut us out.”

“It’s not _me_ ,” Sophie retorted. “If you go running off all crazy you’re just going to mess up Harry’s mission!”

Remus could see her point, especially as the Order had no idea what Harry was even up to. Still, given the danger involved in penetrating the enemy stronghold, surely he could use some assistance. “But what if he needs our help?” Remus pressed. “Even if we can’t join him, we should be nearby if we are needed. If he’s caught, if he’s even just seen, he’ll be in terrible danger.”

“Well, terrible danger is kind of for everybody, all the time…” Sophie said, whatever humour she was aiming for undercut by the worried twisting of her hands.

No doubt sensing weakness, Moody said, “We don’t need to be told what he’s up to. All we need is to be there if things go pear-shaped. If Potter dies, so does this whole bloody effort. I don’t have to know what he’s been doing to know that.”

Sophie fidgeted with her mobile again. Remus couldn’t tell if she was learning anything new or just stalling. “I see your point,” she said after a moment. “But I want a promise that we’re just a reserve force. We can’t blot on their mission, okay? I’m not going to help you if you won’t agree to that.”

Remus frowned. “Help us how?”

“Kylie and I can get you there,” Sophie said confidently, “ _if_ you promise to stay in reserve.”

“I don’t know if we could get past the wards quietly, anyway. Though apparently Potter can,” Moody observed shrewdly.

“You let me worry about that,” Sophie said firmly. “You promise not to run in and do anything dumb?”

Remus, Tonks, Bill and Moody all looked at each other, coming to a silent agreement. This was their first chance to directly assist Harry with whatever task Dumbledore had left to him, and they weren’t going to let it pass by.

“I’d say Harry’s got it hard enough without us mucking it up for him,” Tonks said.

“Fine. But if there’s as many of them there as I think there are, we can’t hold back,” Moody said. “If we get to strike a blow, then let’s make it a damn good one.”

“I’ll get everyone who can hold a wand,” Bill said, striding for the exit.

Sophie steered Kylie back into the girl’s room. “We should practice before we go, just a couple times, okay?”

“Okay,” Kylie said.

Remus looked over at Tonks when she took his hand. “Maybe you should sit this one out,” she said, concerned.

He felt the ache in his side and the heavy dragging of fatigue, but he could ignore both. What was happening was too important for him to be absent. “I’ll be all right. I’ll rest until it’s time to go.”

She went with him to the only remaining empty room and they settled in on the narrow bed. Remus took great comfort in her presence, but between the throbbing in his side and the threat of possibilities to come, sleep seemed out of reach.

He stared at the ceiling and wondered what Harry was doing somewhere out there, in the dark.

 


	44. Psi Omega Warden

**44**

**Psi Omega Warden**  

\--- 

_“Typical KRAF protocol for capture is  
_ _to stick to what they call Omega Nu Rho:  
_ _‘Offer No Reply’, a mantra of silence  
_ _and stoicism in the face of the enemy.  
_ _It was this standing order which  
_ _the secretive (and still denied by the  
_ _Imperiarchy to this this day) Omicron  
_ _dark unit famously employed at the  
_ _Levrithe standoff, maintaining an eerie  
_ _silence despite repeated requests for  
_ _their demands or any dialogue at all._

_The Primarius, as usual, views things  
_ _somewhat differently. It is not unheard  
_ _of for Combat Corps soldiers, already  
_ _captured at great cost, to hide the extent  
_ _of their prowess until they can break free  
_ _behind enemy lines. Integrationists,  
_ _especially, are not trusted as prisoners,  
_ _and any information gained through  
_ _interrogation is doubted by virtue of its  
_ _source. It is for this reason that many  
_ _treaties dealing with prisoner of war  
_ _conventions specifically exclude Primarius  
_ _soldiers from certain laws, most notably  
_ _those against solitary confinement.”_

—J. Jessica Lange, _The Carrot and the Railgun: War and Politics in the Modern Republic_  

\---

Hermione crawled back into consciousness as if moving through a black sludge. Her head pounded, and sharp pain pulsed in her left leg with every heartbeat. She was floating, though she wasn’t sure if the sensation was literal or a by-product of her disorientation. She felt a hard, cold surface settle against her back, and heard the clanking of metal; slowly, she came back to herself.

“I told you to bind his legs,” a man said, voice gravelly and accented.

“He’s Stunned and his arms are chained,” another voice sneered, this one familiar. “Anything more would be excessive.”

“Of course. You wouldn’t want to be too careful,” the accented voice said dryly.

“Are you suggesting I don’t take the security of my home seriously?”

“Yes, so seriously you did not bother to ward against house-elves.”

“Your paranoia is truly impressive. More considerable than even your timid reputation suggests…”

“Perhaps I’ll tell you the Dark Lord is coming down here, hmm? That will quiet you. You talk too much for a man in your position. Maybe you should try listening.”

“You should consider your tone when addressing your betters,” the other man said tightly, and Hermione was now quite certain that it was Lucius Malfoy. “I will see to the prisoners. Go make your reports.”

“Bind his legs. And find another length of chain.”

There was a clatter when something fell to the floor. “I’ll leave this to you, then. I’m sure the Dark Lord will be interested to learn how much you fear a man chained and blindfolded.”

Footsteps echoed in what sounded like stone surrounds, becoming distant. Hermione was positive that Lucius was ascending a staircase.

“He might, if you had the balls to tell him,” the accented man muttered. There was more clanking, and then footsteps came in Hermione’s direction. She stiffened, trying to control her breathing.

Her blindfold was lifted upwards and she blinked against the sudden light. A face loomed over her, craggy and stubbled with hair so short and receded she at first mistook him for bald. He had heavy features and square eyebrows set over dark, intelligent eyes.

“She’s awake,” the man said in his accent (it reminded her of Viktor, even if it wasn’t quite the same).

“Where… where am I?” Hermione rasped, mind searching frantically for an appropriate ruse. “Surely there’s been some mistake, I was—”

“Save your lies, girl,” the man said, not unkindly. “Save them for someone stupider. There will be plenty.”

“Lestrange said to bring the girl upstairs when she awoke,” someone said behind the unshaven man.

“No,” the unshaven man said curtly, standing up and backing away from Hermione.

“You think it’s wise to ignore her?”

“She can’t be trusted. She breaks all her toys.” The unshaven man bent down over a bloodied, manacled form that Hermione’s still-adjusting eyes could not identify. He then pulled a battered watch from one of his pockets. “Bring water down, then check every twenty minutes. I want to know when this one wakes up.”

Both men left, and Hermione used the opportunity to cautiously raise her head. She was just about to get a good look at the room when the lights went out and she was plunged into absolute darkness.

Panic gnawed at her. She fought it, blindly pushing herself up into a sitting position, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in her ankle. The fact that her captors had not yet treated her injury was a good thing: her handbag was stuffed down into one of her socks.

She wasn’t sure what had happened to her ankle. She remembered a sudden explosion and the sensation of falling. She could only guess as to what transpired after that. Clearly, they had been ambushed. She must have been captured, and the terror of her situation was only mitigated by the knowledge that at least most of the others had got away. She hadn’t seen who the other prisoner was, but she suspected it was Scott. He would have been the last to leave; the most vulnerable, especially if he’d been searching for her. And she couldn’t think of anyone else who would have required double chaining.

“Scott, is that you?” she said into the darkness, hoping fervently for an answer. “Scott?”

“He’s still unconscious,” someone else rasped, making her jump.

“Who’s there?”

“Ollivander… Or what’s left of him,” the voice wheezed.

Hermione gasped. “Mr. Ollivander! Have you been here all this time?”

“I don’t know how long it’s been. Time does not seem to pass down here.” A rustling sound. “Keep your voice low, my dear. Talk too loudly and they will hear us through the floor.”

“You, girl — do you go to Hogwarts?” a second voice suddenly asked.

“I…” Hermione bit her lip, not sure if it was wise to answer. Any information could be dangerous, now.

“Let the poor girl be, Xenophilius. She’ll be answering questions soon enough,” Ollivander said.

Xenophilius…? Luna’s father? “Mr. Lovegood?” Hermione said tentatively.

“Yes! Yes, have you seen my daughter, Luna? Have you heard anything?” Xenophilius asked with desperation in his voice.

“I— I know she’s well,” Hermione vacillated. “She’s been staying with a friend of hers.”

“She’s still with Neville? Good, that’s wonderful…” Mr. Lovegood sighed with great relief.

A clanking sound drew Hermione’s attention. “Scott?” she said hopefully.

“Motherfuckers made me bite my tongue,” someone groused.

That was most definitely Scott. “Thank goodness you’re all right. What happened?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who disappeared.” More clanking, then, “Can’t see a thing. Hold on.” There was a scraping sound. “There we go. Got the blindfold off. And, it’s still dark. You in one piece?”

Hermione frowned. He should be able to see perfectly well compared to the rest of them. “What do you mean, you can’t s—”

“They’re listening to us,” Scott interrupted.

Hermione went still. “How do you know?”

“It’s what I would do.”

She relaxed slightly. “Right. But unless they’re dangling an Extendable Ear in here somewhere, we’re probably fine.”

“Hmm.” Scott didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Come closer. No, wait — I’ll come to you.”

There was a long, loud stretch of metal grinding against stone as Scott pushed his way across the floor towards her (or so she assumed). He must have thought they might be watched, as well, as he could have just stood and walked straight to her.

“There’s no spell to see in the dark, either,” she reminded him.

“You always sound so _sure.”_ He sounded much closer to her. Something bumped up against her hip, and from the way it moved she thought it was his head. “Coming up.” A few more seconds and she could feel his breath on her temple. “You have your handbag?” he said quietly.

“In my sock,” she whispered back. “I think my ankle’s broken.”

“You must have fallen into the cellar or something. That ankle is going to be a problem when we get out of here.”

He was very optimistic for a man chained in a dungeon. Hermione supposed it probably wasn’t the first time for him. It was for her, though, and she was just barely keeping panic at bay. “There’s a potion in my handbag that should work. It’ll take time, though, if I can even get to it.”

“We can’t stay. Not with a you-know-what in the bag. I’m gonna try to get us out of here, but I need you to do what I say, when I say it. Okay?”

“Of course,” she immediately agreed. He was the expert in this situation.

“First we get untied, then we get you that potion.”

“They might be back in minute,” Hermione told him. “One of them was supposed to bring water and hasn’t yet. Then he was supposed to check every twenty minutes until you were awake.”

Scott started shuffling back to his original position. “Then let’s hope they really aren’t listening in.”

About five minutes later the door up the stairs opened and the lights came back on with blinding clarity. A Death Eater with a bucket of water came in with his wand held out and ready. He set the bucket down between all of them, briefly bent down over Scott’s still form, and then left, returning the room to darkness.

Scott started moving again. “Your hands first,” he whispered into her ear.

“How?”

“Roll over and let me get at them.”

She did so, rolling over until she felt Scott’s hands close around the ropes that held her. She was mystified as to how he intended to undo them when they suddenly disappeared. She rubbed at her raw wrists as circulation returned to her hands. She hadn’t realised the ropes had been magical. Obviously, Scott’s chains were not.

“Okay, the handbag. Down the potion and then find my backup bag,” Scott said.

Difficult to do in the dark. With Scott’s spoken guidance she managed to find her collection of potions. He couldn’t read the labels in the dark, forcing her to identify the correct one by smell. Pins and needles began buzzing in her ankle as the potion did its work, but she knew if Scott had his way then escape would come before she was healed enough to stand on her own.

Both Ollivander and Mr. Lovegood remained silent despite the sounds of bottles and the rustling of the bag. They couldn’t have known what was happening, though they knew better than to call attention to it.

One of Scott’s duffel bags lay within the cavernous interior of the handbag. Hermione found it through touch alone. “I’ve got it. What about the chains?”

“They’re too big for what they’re being used for, I’m guessing it’s all they had. The chain part isn’t what’s holding me, it’s running between two manacles. I need you to feel these cuffs and tell me what I’m up against.”

Hermione thrust out into the darkness, searching for his hands. Shoulder, back, elbow — there. She traced the tangled chains around his arms and the manacles at his wrists. They felt pitted, rusted. The metal was uneven and seemed to her very old. She found the small hole for a key on both sides, and then said, “I think they’re quite old.”

“How thick is the metal around the wrist?”

She checked. “They’re very thick length-wise, going up your arm. But quite thin the other way.”

“So I break the clasp, not bend the circle. Pull the chain down until it’s off my arms.”

It took some doing, but she eventually worked the chain free of its knot until it fell loosely to the floor.

The door to their prison suddenly opened again. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut against the bright even as she frantically stuffed the handbag back into her sock. Scott didn’t have time to get back into his old position. Whoever had opened the door must have seen Scott, because it immediately closed again.

“Lay down behind me,” Scott quietly instructed her, guiding her to be behind his back.  
  
“What if they take me?” she whispered, voice shaking at the thought.

“Then talk. Tell them we were trying to hide in the house. Make something up, it doesn’t matter what.”

“But what if what I tell them doesn’t match what you—”

“If you talk first, I won’t say anything. If I talk first, then no problem. Lay down, don’t move when they come in and don’t say anything.”

She complied. The stone floor was hard and cold and she couldn’t suppress a shiver. She positioned herself so that she could see around Scott’s back, her eyes hidden behind her hair.

Multiple sets of footsteps approached and then stopped nearby.

***---~**~---***

Scott wasn’t at all happy about the situation, but it was more or less what he’d expected before he’d blacked out. His mind was putting the pieces into place, determining how to best cut the current Gordian knot.

His chains were more of a precaution than he’d expected from his captors. He suspected whoever was behind the ambush was also responsible for the heightened safeguards. With Hermione’s help, he had figured out how to best free his arms without injuring himself. Before he could act on the information, the sound of the door signalled they had company. Apparently, he wasn’t going to get any more time. Not unless he could stall.

Four Death Eaters came down into the room. Most of them hung back, while one approached to stand directly before Scott. The man was of average height, a bit thick around the middle and with a hairline so receded it wasn't visible when looking him in the eye. Thick, black stubble covered his upper lip and jaw. He wore simple, short robes, a direct contrast to the flowing lines and hoods of the other Death Eaters in the dungeon. Despite such a lack of ornamentation, Scott assessed him as having authority. The other men stepped aside, giving the unshaven man room.

Scott emptied himself of all emotion and stared back, blank-faced, at his captors.

"You are awake. That’s good," the unshaven man said with a heavy Eastern-European accent that Scott began trying to place. "They did not beat you too badly, then. Can you understand me?" When Scott didn't reply, the man's eyebrows moved fractionally upward and he said, "I think you can."

Scott still said nothing. The Death Eaters behind the unshaven man seemed to be split into two distinct groups. The one on the right, closest to the unshaven man, was similarly dressed; relatively shabby for a Death Eater, without any ostentation. The two men on the left were wearing robes of the more familiar Death Eater style.

"Here is water," the unshaven man said, gesturing to the bucket. Scott didn't move. "You are not thirsty. It will be there when you are. What is your name?" Another moment of weighted silence. “No name? We all have names. Okay, we trade: a name for name. Your name, my name.”

Scott debated his options.

The unshaven man didn't smile, exactly, no one would call it that, but his mouth flexed in an understated grimace. “You are a professional. I know. I told them, I said he will not talk to you.”

“I can make him talk,” one of the Death Eaters growled from the shadows.

“No, you can't,” the unshaven man said.

Definitely East Slavic. Something close to Russian, but not quite. Not Ukrainian. Not Polish, either.

The unshaven man leaned in closer, dropping his voice to an almost conspiratorial rumble. “You are taught not to talk, I know. But if you will not talk to me then they will come down here, and things will be worse. Tell me something. Your name... Your age, how tall you are... Who was your first fuck, it does not matter. Anything. Just so you speak to me, and I can tell them.”

Scott hadn’t known if he would warrant a proper interrogation by a ranking member of Riddle's organisation. He’d been afraid that he would be ignored in favour of Hermione, which could easily still happen depending on how things went.

The unshaven man presented a bit of a mystery, because he didn't look or carry himself like the pure-blood elite that lorded above the Death Eater rank and file. He had a very ordinary appearance; he could be any middle-aged Slavic man from the ex-Soviet bloc. But up close, his eyes were too sharp to belong to a peon. The body language of the two well-dressed Death Eaters spoke volumes in the way they held themselves back from the unshaven man with a mixture of fear and contempt.

Scott was certain he was having a one-sided conversation with the architect of his capture.

It would explain the reaction from the Death Eaters, that combination of submission and scorn. The unshaven man had known how to fight Scott, and that meant he knew how to fight like a Muggle. He was familiar with the Muggles, perhaps even _of_ the Muggles, and therefore he was tainted. But he was also far more useful than the rest of the cringing rabble, at least for the task set for him. And anyone in Riddle's good graces could not be openly challenged.

There was more to the unshaven man than that, though. He understood that the best path to interrogation was building a relationship with his prisoner, in making the exchange of information seem mutually beneficial. He had assessed Scott and made the (correct) assumption that pure torture wouldn't work. He was affable without giving anything away. Not common abilities in an ordinary thug. A lucky find in Voldemort's ranks? Or an experienced mercenary, perhaps...

The first tactic in resisting interrogation was simply not to speak. A good defence when the law protected you, but eventually untenable when in a prisoner of war situation. Scott knew he would be made to speak, one way or another. More to the point, Hermione would. He needed to delay that if he could.

“My name wouldn’t mean anything,” Scott said.

The unshaven man nodded slightly. “Maybe not. But it’s a start.”

“I don’t think we need to be on a first name basis for you to kill me.”

“Why would I kill you?”

“You’ll be told to.” Scott looked at the two Death Eaters to the left, both of whom were still glaring at him. “It’s how things work around here.”

The unshaven man raised an eyebrow. “Then you should be useful to us, yes? Save yourself, and the girl.”

“There’s no saving anyone. Haven’t you worked for Riddle long enough to know that?”

“Tell me what I need to know, and I can protect you,” the unshaven man urged.

“You can’t even protect yourself. Your boss is a snake-faced lunatic who kills just because he can,” Scott said, smiling. “Something tells me I’m not the prisoner he’s interested in having. Cross your fingers, and maybe he won’t shoot the messenger.”

“You should worry about yourself, yes?” the unshaven man said dryly. “I think you can tell me a lot. But if you won’t, then the girl will.”

“What could I possibly know that’s worth all this trouble?” Scott said.

“Potter,” the unshaven man said bluntly. “The Dark Lord wants Potter. You know where he is.”

“You have a touching amount of faith in me.”

“What do you want? Hmm?” The unshaven man spread his hands questioningly. “I can be generous. Our gold is as good as Potter’s, yes? Better to be a rich man than a dead one.” He dropped his hands ominously. “Or, there are other ways.”

“Yeah, I know.”

When Scott didn’t continue, the unshaven man said, “Listen to me, my friend. You are a smart man, you understand your situation. We both know that you will talk, in time. But there would be so much unpleasantness. Why don’t we go right to the end? Why suffer, and then speak, when you can speak now?”

A good point, if irrelevant. While the unshaven man was speaking, Scott had been isolating and carefully cutting off Hermione’s connection to Grimmauld Place. If Harry was still there, then Hermione couldn’t tell anyone about it. If he wasn’t, then she didn’t know where he was, anyway. The information the unshaven man wanted was useless, but given enough time to dig he’d hit upon the stuff he hadn’t been looking for.

Scott flexed his arms a bit, testing the manacles. He was pretty sure he could pull them apart. He was less sure he could take out all four men in the room without the whole place hearing it. “I never spoke with Potter. My payments were arranged through a third party.”

The unshaven man didn’t look convinced. “How can he pay you when he can’t get to his money?”

Scott shrugged. “Maybe it isn’t his money. Maybe I’m not even working for him, I don’t know.”

“You never asked?”

“I never cared. As you so succinctly implied, gold is gold.”

“You fight very hard for a man who doesn’t care for his cause.”

“So do you.”

The unshaven man’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then he said, “Why were you at Potter’s old house?”

“Looking for something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to look for it.”

“They are that careful.”

Scott grinned. “Your problem is you think you’ve caught some kind of mastermind. You think they trust me. I’ve never met Potter. I’ve never seen him. For all I know, he’s not even in England. I get a bag of money, I get the names of people I’m supposed to meet, and I get a Portkey. I don’t get paid to ask questions and I don’t get paid to be curious.”

“And who is she?” The unshaven man pointed briefly towards Hermione’s obscured form.

“Bluebird.”

“A codename.” The unshaven scratched lightly at his chin. “It’s funny, you are trying very hard to protect her, yet you say you don’t even know her name.”

“Well, you’ll have to excuse me for not being onboard with the rape train. Where I’m from, we prefer to pretend we’re civilised.”

“And where is that?”

“The rape train isn’t anywhere in particular, it’s more of a metaphorical train, or at least I _hope—_ ”

“Where are you from?”

“Why does that matter? I’m here.”

“I wanted to say American Midwest,” the unshaven man mused. “But after listening now, maybe Vancouver.”

“That is quite the hair to split.”

“But not right.”

“No, but I remain impressed.”

“How much?”

“I mean, you know, _pretty_ impressed…”

“How much have they paid you?” the unshaven man said patiently.

“Not nearly enough for this.”

“So you went to Gringotts. Yes? Hard to get money when you cannot go to the bank.”

“My funding became an issue,” Scott hedged. He didn’t see the point in denying his presence at Gringotts. It would never be a believable denial, and if the unshaven man wanted to think it really had been about money, so much the better.

“Why not quit? Why stay?” The unshaven man shrugged. “Why not work for us, instead?”

“Forgiveness doesn’t rate high on your Dark Lord’s list of virtues. Money is great, but it’s not super useful when you aren’t alive to spend it. If I can collect at the end, so much the better, but if Riddle gets his way we’re all gonna be dead.”

“You seem very convinced of that.”

Scott looked the unshaven man directly in the eye. “He’s going to pick a fight with the Muggles. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, Voldemort is going to take us to war against the Muggles, and by the time it’s over, we’ll be gone. There won’t be a scrap left of us.”

The unshaven man was far too good to openly react, but Scott knew the other man was smart enough to see the truth of the statement, even if he disagreed regarding its inevitability. The Death Eater standing closest to the unshaven man appeared faintly troubled by Scott’s words. The two more well-dressed men were openly mocking, one of them even laughing a bit.

“Well, they think it’s funny, anyway,” Scott said to the unshaven man. “But maybe your crew understand the reality of the situation a little better.”

“It’s been interesting, yes. But Godric’s Hollow,” the unshaven man said, refusing to go off track, “were you also looking for something there?”

“Yes, and we found it.”

“Found what?”

“You,” Scott said with a half-smile.

That gave the unshaven man the shortest of pauses. “Me?”

“Something had happened early on with Potter. I don’t know what, but you must have tipped your hand at least a little. I was told to find a trap to spring. They probably learned a lot, watching you chase me. I know I did.”

“You are a hard man to catch,” the unshaven man agreed. “I needed a better trap.”

“And some leeway to build it. I noticed you weren’t invited to the bank fiasco,” Scott observed.

But the unshaven man was not so easily lured into discussing his chain of command. Instead, he said, “I did not see your partner this time.”

“I don’t have a partner.”

“No? You weren’t alone at the bank. And there were other things… Yours is not the only gun.”

“You’re wasting your time. They don’t trust the hired help with the details and they definitely don’t trust us with each other. I know I’m not the only person they’ve paid, and that’s it.”

“You know the woman who was with you at Gringotts.”

“I know someone who was drinking Polyjuice and talking in an Irish accent that may or may not have been real. Not like I can tell. Shit, maybe she wasn’t even a woman.”

“I think it was the woman from Hogwarts, and the wedding.”

“Then you know more than me, because you know I wasn’t around for either of those.”

“True,” the unshaven man acceded. “When were you hired?”

Scott’s answer was forestalled when the door at the top of the stairs flew open with a clatter.

***---~**~---***

Hermione’s shoulder was aching from prolonged contact with the stone floor, but she remained silent and unmoving. Thus far it had been surprisingly easy to avoid any direct attention from the man interrogating Scott, though that was mostly because he seemed oddly uninterested in her.

He had made a few references to hurting her, but that had only been a tool to gain Scott’s cooperation. The unshaven man appeared almost apathetic to the fact he had another prisoner. Maybe he knew he had plenty of time for them both. But he came across as so genuinely indifferent to Hermione that she was starting to wonder what his priorities were, and if they matched Riddle’s at all.

The door to the cellar opened and cut short the unshaven man’s next question from Scott.

“Rahvalod!” a woman spat loudly. Sharp, quick footsteps made their way down the stairs. “I was to be told of any prisoners immediately!”

A cold chill ran down Hermione’s spine. She knew that voice.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Rahvalod said pointedly.

Bellatrix ignored him. “What have we here?” she breathed. Hermione opened one eye the tiniest sliver, and saw a long-nailed hand grasp Scott by the hair. “Another of Dumbledore’s blood traitors? Or perhaps a common Mudblood?”

“Let go of my hair, lady,” Scott said.

“Still defiant. Rahvalod, you disappoint, as usual. But I’ll fix him—”

“I need him to be able to talk,” Rahvalod told her with a definite edge to his voice.

“You dare touch me?!” Bellatrix hissed. Rahvalod must have caught her wrist before she could cast the Cruciatus on Scott, Hermione surmised.

“I’m not done. If you want prisoners, go find your own.”

But Bellatrix wasn’t listening. “Who’s this…?” she said.

Hermione immediately wished she had thought to do something about her distinctive hair. It was too late, though. She was yanked upright and found herself looking into Bellatrix’s crazed eyes.

“The girl!” Bellatrix said, long nails digging into Hermione’s jaw. “Potter’s girl, the Muggle. I know this face.”

Hermione jerked her head free and looked away, heart pounding.

“You’re sure?” Rahvalod said.

Bellatrix hesitated. “…The boy. He’ll know. Go find the boy and bring him here!” she snapped at one of the other Death Eaters. She turned back to Scott. “Who is he?”

“A mercenary.” Rahvalod was clearly not interested in being forthcoming with Bellatrix. The rift between the two of them would have been interesting if Hermione thought there would ever be time to exploit it.

“Lovely,” Bellatrix sneered. “You must have so much in common.”

“We don’t look like a heroin junkie in a fright wig, so there’s that,” Scott said.

“We were talking before, about when you were hired,” Rahvalod smoothly interjected before Bellatrix could respond. “How did they find you?”

“I found them. Where there’s a war, there’s money.”

“You didn’t consider you might be choosing the wrong side?”

Scott snorted. “Voldemort’s track record didn’t inspire confidence. He found a way to fuck up for something like six years running, and at some point it stops being bad luck and starts being self-destruction.”

_“CRUCIO!”_

Hermione watched helplessly as Scott spasmed violently, Bellatrix’s powerful curse igniting his nerve endings. He hunched forward until his forehead pressed against the floor, entire body twitching.

Incredibly, he didn’t make a sound.

When the curse lifted, he stayed that way, breathing heavily for a moment before pushing himself back into a sitting position.

“Losing your touch?” Rahvalod murmured near Bellatrix’s ear.

She shot him a scathing glance and then bent down to be nearer to Scott’s face. “Be careful how you speak of the Dark Lord,” she hissed at him. “Your life hangs by the merest thread.”

Scott slammed his forehead into her face so hard that Bellatrix fell backwards and collapsed unconscious on the floor, blood streaming from a broken nose.

One of the Death Eaters shouted in alarm and drew his wand. Rahvalod held out a hand, stopping the other man. “Unfortunate,” he said, his expression indicating it was anything but. “Perhaps she’ll be more careful next time. Take her upstairs, find her sister.”

The Death Eater levitated Bellatrix up the stairs and out of the cellar. No sooner had he left than the door opened again, admitting two more figures. One of them was yet another faceless Death Eater, masked and robed. The other, Hermione saw with revulsion, was a pale and haggard-looking Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy walked into the room with the air of someone who expected to be kept there with the other prisoners. He held himself as if he was among enemies, not comrades. It was spiteful, but Hermione couldn’t help but feel a little surge of satisfaction at seeing Malfoy getting what he wanted, only to find it wasn’t what he wanted at all.

She couldn’t see Scott’s face, though judging by the way he wasn’t saying anything, it was probably impassive. She had half expected him to start verbally tearing into Malfoy, as had been his usual practice at Hogwarts, but then she realised he probably didn’t want Malfoy to recognise him. Too bad Hermione couldn’t do anything to mask her own identity.

Rahvalod pointed at Scott. “You know him?”

Malfoy’s gaze barely flickered over Scott before he said, in a subdued tone, “No. I don’t know who he is.”

Amazing how well an added ten to fifteen years worked as a disguise. Hermione didn’t bother trying to hide her face behind her hair, aware she would simply be forced to bare it anyway. She stared at Malfoy and hoped he could feel every ounce of scorn she felt towards him.

“And her? Is this Hermione Granger?”

The recognition was clear in Malfoy’s eyes the second he looked at her. He flinched slightly, mouth thinning. He looked no happier to see her in the cellar than she was to be there.

“…Maybe,” Malfoy mumbled, looking away.

But it was too late for that. Rahvalod was clever enough to read the truth in Malfoy’s uncomfortable stance. “You can go,” he said curtly.

Malfoy slumped his way out of the cellar, casting one last haunted look over his shoulder. Hermione badly wanted to say she hoped he was happy. She didn’t, though, remembering Scott’s words.

“The Dark Lord must be informed,” one of the Death Eaters said, starting for the stairs.

Rahvalod didn’t look pleased at the idea, but he made no move to stop the other man. Instead, he turned back to Scott. “Dangerous company you’ve been keeping,” he remarked.

“Me?” Scott said with an incredulous laugh. “Does your mom know who _you’ve_ been hanging out with?”

Hermione didn’t know how he could be so glib when Voldemort was on the way. Her breath was short and she felt like she was tipping over the edge towards panic, clinging to her composure by her fingertips. Riddle would find out about the Horcruxes and it was all her fault. She only hoped she could stay alive long enough to apologise to Harry.

And then, there he was. Voldemort came down the steps, followed by a few of his Death Eaters. It was almost unreal, to see the man (if that’s what he still was) they’d spent so much time running from, so much effort working to undermine, descending the staircase in front of her. Voldemort was every bit as horrid as she’d expected, his visage a snake-like death’s head, chalk white with menace etched in every inhuman line. Hermione shuddered with terror and disgust. How could anyone willingly serve such an obvious monster? He wore his inhumanity openly, flaunted his evil like a badge of honour.

Voldemort stopped and observed Scott and Hermione with blood red eyes. His Death Eaters arrayed themselves in a half circle, facing the prisoners. “You’ve done well, Rahvalod,” he said softly, voice as clear and cold as an alpine stream.

“My lord.” Rahvalod ducked his head in a short bow.

Those piercing red eyes turned on Scott. “And who are you?”

“Another mystery in a world full of them,” Scott said.

A cruel smile flitted over Voldemort’s lips. “There’s no mystery to you. You fight for Potter. Will you die for him, too…?”

“We are configurations, constellations, a temporary pattern. We only exist in the right light.”

Voldemort tilted his head slightly, as if Scott were a curiosity. “A philosopher. No wonder you’ve followed in Dumbledore’s footsteps. Another doddering intellectual, too busy pondering life to seize it.”

Scott laughed like Voldemort had just told a joke. “You think being above introspection makes you _more_ self-aware? The multiverse is an ant farm. You’re just tapping on the glass.”

“This is all you’ve heard from him?” Voldemort asked Rahvalod.

“No,” Rahvalod said with a slight frown. “This is new.”

“It’s because there’s no point,” Scott said.

“Oh, no, there is very much a point,” Voldemort told him. “You could save yourself, and the girl.”

Scott sighed loudly. “You know, I had all these things I was going to say to you. All the shit that sounds great in your head when you imagine talking to someone. But, you know what? I’m looking at you, this fucking chalk-faced goon that thinks it’s people, and it doesn’t fucking matter. Because here you are, balls deep in the middle of your second war, with your second army and your second-hand ideas of what it means to be a Dark Lord, doing your best to literally live out the definition of insanity. There is not a goddamn thing I could say to you to even shake your sense of direction, because crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. You’ve stripped your mind down to the creaking nuts and bolts of whatever it meant to be Tom Riddle and there’s nothing left but cobwebs and the notion that no matter how badly you drop the fucking ball, you’re still on the rails of what you think is a plan. But you know what, Tom? There is no plan. There’s no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. There is no possible circumstance that gives you what you want because you don’t even know what you want. You’re taking over a country you don’t know how to run, you’re pushing an agenda that guarantees extinction, and at every possible turn, you’re fucking up without a parachute. The only real question is how long you can keep this up before you drive your enterprise straight off the next fucking cliff, because no one hates Tom Riddle more than Tom Riddle and that is the cornerstone of your shitty fucking brand; I could set a watch to Potter kicking your ass in every summer. And if you somehow live long enough to become the next Caesar, then it’s just a question of who becomes the next Brutus. Because it’s not like anyone can stand you anyway, you fucking bargain basement Nosferatu. So you say whatever inane crap you feel like saying, and then get to the part where you lose your shit and try to kill me, because we all know that’s your primary form of interaction and I’m already tired of looking at you.”

As Scott had been speaking, the other Death Eaters in the room had been slowly edging away from Voldemort. And for good reason: his eyes were alight with rage and his wand was extended in one slim-fingered hand.

“You know _nothing_ —” Voldemort began to spit.

Scott rolled his eyes and interjected, “Oh, fuck off, Tom, you bleached asshole in a dyed black potato sack, you albino foreskin Frankenstein; go sixty-nine Sauron you—”

Voldemort whipped his wand in a violent horizontal motion and Hermione watched in horror as Scott flew across the room and into the wall with shattering force. He hit the ground, and didn’t move.

Silence returned to the cellar. Voldemort stood there, wand in one fist, as anger boiled off him like a physical thing. His flat nostrils flared and he seemed to collect himself, tension leaving his thin frame.

“Clever,” he said quietly, looking at Scott’s still body. “He wanted that, he enraged me… Perhaps he knew of Potter… No matter. I still have the girl.” He turned to Hermione. “No words this time, no lies…”

Hermione tried to fight it; she really did. She felt the magic take hold, vile and invasive, and images began to flash through her mind. She knew Legilimency could be subtle, undetected, but Voldemort was not gentle. He stormed through her mind like a tornado, ripping up all the pieces of her self for his perusal. She attempted to direct him somewhere harmless. She thought of the early years at school, of things he already knew. But one thought led to another and then there was the last, terrible image in a line of related things: the drawing room at Grimmauld, the night air outside of the Burrow, the Sword of Gryffindor smashing through the locket. Trying to hide the memory only seemed to make it stand out, and the second she saw the locket she felt Voldemort’s shock through the connection, and then rage and fear so terrible it felt almost like her own—

Voldemort’s inhuman scream of rage filled the room. Hermione found herself staring at the stone beneath her fingers, bent forward on her hands and knees with her head spinning. She looked up; the Death Eaters were only beginning to back away in alarm when their Dark Lord, howling with animal fury, lashed out in his lethal, unthinking wrath. The cellar flashed with terrible green light as the Killing Curse struck again and again, dark figures tumbling to the stone, scattering in panic or dying where they stood.

Hermione was blinded by a sudden flash and heard a roaring whoosh. She fell over, rolling along the floor until she came to rest on her stomach. She stayed like that, forehead pressed to the cold stone, dizzy and afraid to move. The Killing Curse cracked against the walls and pillars and ripped the life from men begging for mercy, men who didn’t even understand why they were being killed.

Then silence fell, sudden and heavy.

Hermione opened her eyes and brushed her hair away. Voldemort was gone. Slowly, she sat up and beheld the scattered corpses of the Death Eaters, legs splayed, hands still held out in mute supplication, terror stamped on their features. It was a massacre.

Tom Riddle was truly insane.

“Scott?” she whispered, beginning to crawl towards where she had last seen him. He could protect himself from the Curse, but only if he had been conscious.

She froze when Rahvalod stepped out of the shadows that had hidden him in a slight alcove.

He looked down at the bodies of the Death Eaters, then at Hermione. His expression was not shocked or angry; it was calculating. He met Hermione’s frightened stare levelly, his eyes narrowed shrewdly.

Then, the corner of his mouth lifted so slightly, she thought she might be imagining it.

 _“Shchaśliva,”_ he said.

He walked out of the cellar with a calm and measured stride, leaving the door open behind him.

Hermione had no idea what to make of that, but she didn’t have the time to ponder. She resumed her painful crawl until she reached Scott’s crumpled form at the far wall.

“Scott!” She managed to roll him over, and paled at the amount of blood matting his hair. “Oh… Scott. Scott, you have to wake up.” She patted at his shoulders, afraid to touch his head.

“Fuckin’ cock ass shit ass fuck,” he coughed.

“Oh thank god,” Hermione sighed.

He sat up and surveyed the room. “Holy crap. Did you do this?”

“No! Riddle’s insane, he… What were you thinking?!” she berated him. “Why would you say all that, what was the point of getting him to kill you?”

“Okay, so that didn’t pay off,” Scott said with a wince, touching his head. “I figured he’d just use the Killing Curse on me, since that’s kind of his thing. Guess he’s a little more versatile than I thought. I was gonna block it and then block anything he did to you.”

“He’d still figure out it was you eventually, that would only work for so long.”

“Yeah, just like everything else. I’ve been trying to stall so we could get out of here!”

Hermione clenched her jaw, then admitted, “Scott, he knows. He knows about the Horcruxes, I tried to stop him but—”

Scott cut her self-recriminations short. “It’s done.”

“He went berserk, killed everyone except—” she gasped in sudden horror. “Ollivander and Mr. Lovegood!”

Scott grabbed her shoulder before she could turn to look. “They’re gone.”

“Oh, no… Luna…” Hermione pressed one hand to her lips, heart sinking.

“Focus. Did anyone survive?”

He was right, she had to focus. She shook herself a little. “Um, yes, Rahvalod. But, he saw me and didn’t do anything, he just left, didn’t even shut the door. He may be bringing others.”

Scott frowned. “No, I think he’s hedging his bets.”

“I suppose… He’s certainly seen enough to reconsider his options.”

“He comes out ahead either way. Come on, we need to move.” Scott’s jaw clenched and then there was a loud pop as old metal gave way. He brought his arms around and tore the remaining manacle off his wrist. “Remember all that shitty stuff I said to you before the wedding?”

Why on earth was he bringing that back up? “Well, yes, but—”

“I totally owe you a piggyback ride.”

Hermione clung to Scott’s back as he ascended the stairs, one hand clutching a dead Death Eater’s wand. They emerged in a sumptuous drawing room, bedecked with finery. In tone and quality, it was akin to a very high-end Grimmauld Place. It was also deserted.

“Is it a trap?” Hermione whispered.

“They heard Riddle flip out; no one’s coming in here until they’re sure he’s gone.” Scott went to the nearest door. The sound of voices filtered in distantly from the hallway. “I’m hoping Rahvalod took most of his people with him.”

Footsteps from the other end of the hall. Scott ducked back into the drawing room and sped across to the doors on the other side. Just as he reached it, the door rattled slightly. Scott veered away and went rapidly through another door to the left. They ended up in an empty hallway with large painted portraits spaced evenly down both sides. To the right, it took a turn and probably connected to the hall with the door that had rattled. The left led to a staircase, the upper reaches of it darkened. Scott chose the staircase, and bolted upwards. Hermione gritted her teeth against the sharp pains that shot through her ankle and leg with every jolt.

Most of the lights were off upstairs, the hallways drenched in a gloom that was intermittently dispersed by moonlight streaming through the windows. Scott checked each door as they passed until they came across a sitting room with a large double window. He stepped inside and Hermione reached to partially shut the door behind them.

The window afforded them a good view of the grounds. The distant gardens seemed empty, the snow undisturbed, but in the areas around the Manor she could see clusters of Death Eaters and Snatchers, most of them gathered around large bonfires. There were also what looked to be stables near one side of the house where people were coming and going. There were even a few dark shapes moving around the perimeter alone, probably sentries.

“Shit,” Scott muttered. “We’re gonna need a distraction.”

Hermione knew he’d have a far better chance of slipping out alone than he would with her clinging to his back. “What if I hid somewhere? The others have to be told that Riddle knows.”

Scott was still examining the placement of enemies outside. “Does it matter? Can he even make another one? Isn’t he scraping the bottom of the soul barrel at this point? It’s not like he has a lot of sanity left to spend.”

Riddle’s degradation was obvious, to be sure. Whatever remained of his humanity was dissolving, along with his mind, and Hermione also suspected that making so many Horcruxes was the most probable cause (though she was a bit surprised that Scott hadn’t made a syphilis joke). But despite the irreparable damage Riddle had done to his essence, there was no way of knowing if he could split himself yet again, or if he was even still sane enough to recognise that it would surely cost him what was left of his rationality.

Perhaps creating another Horcrux would destroy him in the process. Even so, it was too great a risk to allow.

“I don’t know, but it’s not something we can take for granted,” she said.

Scott turned from the window, checked the hall again, and then knelt by the door. He took the handbag from her sock and handed it to her. “This could get messy,” he said. “I need one of my handguns and a bunch of magazines for it. There’s also a black case with a suppressor in it, I need that, too.”

Hermione dug through the handbag and procured his armaments, though she didn’t know how long she could hold onto his neck without his arms supporting her. Once he’d finished filling his pockets with ammunition, however, he looped his arms back under her knees. She felt the cold metal of the handgun pressed against the outside of her calf, and wished she could tug the leg of her trousers back down.

“I might have to let go in a hurry,” he warned her.

She didn’t know what he was planning, but she didn’t think even he could shoot his way out through so many foes. “What’s our distraction?”

“Fire. Those stables look like they’ll burn quick.”

“Is it a good idea to set fire to a building right next to the one we’re still inside?”

“Not really, but barring any other flashes of inspiration, I don’t see how we’re getting out of here. They may already be looking for us. Chaos is our best weapon right now.”

Scott carried her through another dimly lit hall. The moon shone down through a cloudless winter sky, its ghostly rays cast bright on the hall carpets, leaving inky shadows on the walls. Unless there was a sudden change in the weather, the two of them would not be difficult to spot outside.

She was struck by inspiration. She raised her wand and rapped it sharply on the top of Scott’s head. When nothing happened, she did it again.

“There a reason you’re hitting me?” Scott whispered testily.

“The Disillusionment Charm isn’t working!” she said with frustration, realising the property must be warded against concealment spells.

Any further conversation was stalled when voices echoed around the nearby corner. Scott darted back the way they had come and ducked into a small room without any windows.

“He’s gone mad!” a woman was saying.

“You’re the one who’s mad!” another woman retorted, and Hermione immediately recognised the fanatical tones of Bellatrix. “They earned his fury, they deserved it—”

“All of them? Every single one? And what did they do, Bella, that they deserved death?” The other woman’s voice was tight and fearful.

Bellatrix did not have an immediate answer. “If he wished for us to know, we would have been told,” she eventually replied.

A scoff. “I doubt even they know why they were butchered.”

“He culls only the weak, the unworthy! Prove yourself, Cissy. Our victory is not far off, you can still show your loyalty!”

“Perhaps. If we survive his victory.”

Their voices hadn’t become any closer or farther away. Scott ducked back out of the room and retraced his steps, leaving the sisters behind. Hermione was interested in the dissension they’d overheard, but it wasn’t the time to discuss it. Every second spent traversing the Manor increased their odds of being trapped yet again.

They returned to the staircase that led to the hall outside the drawing room, only to discover several Death Eaters in deep discussion near the doorway.

Scott reversed course. “Plan B,” he said under his breath.

In the closest room upstairs, he opened the window. After looking below and peering out into the grounds, he stepped up onto the windowsill.

“Hold on tight,” he told her.

Hermione barely repressed a yelp as he launched himself out and upwards, catching the top of the window and clambering up the side of the Manor. After bypassing another set of windows, they were on the roof, darting between chimneys and scampering up shingled inclines. Hermione held on for dear life, hands aching in the bitter wind.

From their lofty perch, she could see with greater clarity the fires burning in the garden, flickering points of light with dark outlines nearby, hoods raised against the chill. The night was cold and clear under the big bright moon, and the only thing stopping the two of them from being seen was their elevated position. The chances of Scott carrying her off the grounds were low, indeed. So far it seemed as if no one had noticed that Hermione and Scott were not among the dead in the cellar. They couldn’t count on that to last much longer, and though Hermione knew better than to underestimate Scott’s lethality, she knew even he couldn’t fight his way out of such odds.

The roof slanted downwards again as they reached the edge above the stables. Hermione’s stomach lodged in her throat as Scott slid across the slope and caught the edge of the roof, swinging back towards the side of the house. She barely resisted the urge to shut her eyes, though she then made the mistake of looking down. The feeling of empty space beneath her feet made her tighten her grip around Scott’s neck until she was probably constricting his airflow, though he didn’t complain. He climbed down the wall until, without warning, he reached up to hold Hermione’s arm in an iron grip and then launched himself out into the air, crossing the small gap between the house and stables.

Hermione was just beginning to let out a shuddering breath when Scott jumped off the stable roof and plunged into a snow drift. She barely stifled a scream. Scott must have felt her tense, because she could see him grinning.

At least _one_ of them was enjoying themselves.

With Scott once again supporting her, Hermione relaxed slightly. Her arms were stiff and aching from holding on for so long and her ankle throbbed mercilessly. She thought she might also be afraid of heights, now.

Through the old wooden slats of the stable, they could see that it had been turned into a makeshift dormitory. The beds that Hermione could see were empty, despite the lateness of the hour.

“Rahvalod’s boys, would be my guess,” Scott said quietly. “This will do.”

The shadows were deep in the narrow space between the manor and the stables, but Hermione felt far from safe. With Scott instructing, she dug through the handbag yet again to produce another of his black bags. He set her down in a snow drift and then placed grenades at intervals along the side of the stables. Finished, he briefly disappeared inside the structure.

“We have ten minutes,” he said when he reappeared.

He looked like he was about to say more when nearby voices interrupted. He hoisted Hermione onto his back and started for the rear gardens when the light of incoming wands made him retreat. There were more voices, even closer, inside the stables. Lacking options, he found the nearest door and slipped back inside.

They emerged in the kitchens. Scott ran to each door, but the sounds of movement and voices came from every hall. Hermione couldn’t tell if there were multiple groups about, or if the halls connected and it was all echoes.

“I have to make a path,” Scott said grimly.

“Do you think they’re looking for us?”

“Could be. Bellatrix knew we were down there, if nobody else.” He opened a nearby cupboard and carefully wedged her inside. “I’ll be right back.”  
  
“Careful!” she whispered, and then she was plunged into darkness.

She only sat there for a few seconds at most before she realised the cupboard door wasn’t shut all the way — she was slightly larger than its capacity allowed, at least with her coat on. She tried to pull it shut but the stubborn thing refused to close. She pulled again, harder, and her elbow jostled a row of glass jars. She froze as the noise rang out.

Through the narrow crack, she could see black robes as a Death Eater entered the kitchens. “Somebody in here?” he called out.

Hermione didn’t feel like waiting to be discovered. A quick push opened the cupboard and a Stunner took care of the curious intruder. She levitated the unconscious man and was just contemplating how best to hide him when Bellatrix strode in through the open door.

There was a moment in which they stared at each other, frozen in mutual surprise. Hermione dropped the man as quickly as she could, but Bellatrix was too fast. Hermione was swiftly disarmed, and covered her head as several of the jars shattered and her wand went flying out onto the floor. She grabbed the cabinet door and closed it, shielding herself from another attack.

Bellatrix simply tore it open and dragged Hermione out by force; Hermione cried out in pain as her ankle took some of her weight and caught on a chair leg. Teeth clenched against the sensation, she managed to put some of Sophie’s training to use and grabbed Bellatrix by the wrist, squeezing and twisting until the mad woman’s wand clattered on the floor.

Unfortunately, Bellatrix was not rendered helpless. Hermione found herself with a silver knife pressed to her throat.

“Thought you could escape?” Bellatrix sneered, breath humid against the side of Hermione’s cheek. “Thought you could defy the Dark Lord again—”

Scott stepped into the kitchen with his gun raised in both hands. There was blood on his trousers and the outsides of his fingers.

Bellatrix’s broken nose had been healed, but her face still bore the bruises of Scott’s previous assault. When she saw him, her teeth bared in a feral snarl and her grip tightened until Hermione felt a trickle of blood run across her collarbone.

“One more step,” Bellatrix breathed. “One more step and I’ll spill her life.”

“Hermione,” Scott said, “close your eyes.”

She did.

There was a bang and a hot, wet spatter against the side of Hermione’s face and then she was falling.

She blinked as Scott lifted her up and carried her out into the hall, handing her wand back. She climbed onto his back again, trying to quell the shaking in her hands as she wiped at her face with her coat sleeve.

“Five minutes,” Scott told her.

There were bodies on the floor not too far down the hallway. Scott stepped over them and Hermione didn’t look too closely. The hall ran through an elegant and thankfully empty parlour. The next room was a study dominated by vast oak desk. Scott made for the door directly across the room, only to have it swing open just before he reached it.

Hermione slid backwards and found herself dangling as Scott released her legs and bent forward slightly in a shooting stance. He raised his weapon almost quicker than the eye could follow and fired; the suppressed weapon barked and clacked its death at the two men in the door. At the same time, Hermione heard the door behind them open. She spun around, one arm clutching Scott with all its strength, and shouted, _“Accio door!”_ The door slammed shut and she cast the Locking Spell.

She managed to get her second hand back around Scott’s shoulders before she lost her grip. He kicked the door shut as he reloaded.

She locked that door, as well. “It will only slow them,” she warned.

“That’s fine.” Scott ran around the desk and picked up an enormous leather-backed chair and hurled it through the window. It shattered the glass and tore out most of the lattice with its bulk.

He supported her legs again and ran to the back of the room where there was a large liquor cabinet and a variety of bookshelves. Scott jumped upwards and vaulted over the decorative carving surmounting the top of the liquor cabinet, behind which was a small, dusty space. Hermione folded her legs up and tried not to sneeze. The pain in her ankle had been worsening with every athletic action Scott had performed, and it now throbbed mercilessly. She pressed her cheek to the back of Scott’s shoulder and took slow, steady breaths. She knew she mustn’t make a sound.

Both doors burst open within seconds of each other. She heard footsteps on broken glass.

“Is it really too much to ask that you catch them before they destroy my house entirely?” an angry voice demanded.

“You go ‘round towards the stables, we’ll go out the servants’ entrance,” another voice ordered.

Hurried footsteps went out both sides of the room, and then someone else shouted, “They’re in the back garden!” but they sounded distant.

“Are we, though?” Scott muttered as he jumped back down onto the carpet. “Two minutes.”

The hallway was empty, save for two crumpled corpses. Hermione noted the bodies were not dressed in the typical Death Eater black, which meant the search was expanding enough to include Snatchers. The corridor took a sharp turn and led to what looked like the servants’ quarters. Scott avoided them and they ended up in a tea room that offered a side view of the front gardens and the path to the manor.

“One minute,” Scott said as he opened one of the windows. He dropped into the hedges below the window and then closed it as best he could from the outside.

There they crouched, prickled by the bottlebrush needles that cloaked them, waiting for their moment to arrive.

“Is it going to be very loud?” Hermione whispered into Scott’s ear.

“Oh, hell yes.”

And there she was, unable to plug her ears for fear he’d have to suddenly move again. “I hope this works.”

“Thirty seconds.”

Hermione braced herself, for all the good it would do.

 


	45. That Terrifying Momentum Part I

**45**

**That Terrifying Momentum**

**Part I**

\---

 

_“As the shape becomes agitated,_

_it loses clarity. All structure_

_becomes obscured. Return to the_

_metaphor of the loom: We see that_

_the shape, in abrupt and terrible motion,_

_becomes like that of a loosely woven_

_tapestry shaken briskly. The eye_

_cannot discern individual threads now_

_that they are in motion relative to_

_the observer. They become indistinct and_

_therefore appear as one unbroken entity._

_All apparent patterns, real or_

_misconstructed, vanish._

_One might imagine that if one were able_

_to move in concordance with the shape’s_

_ostensible motion — despite that this_

_motion is an illusion of perspective —_

_then coherence might be restored. Of_

_course, we must then contemplate if one_

_might be capable of surviving that terrifying_

_momentum at all, or if these forces should_

_prove to be one’s undoing through an internal_

_cataclysm; that the shape might reach forward_

_and with uncaring fingers extinguish the light_

_of sanity.”_

—Thomas Spencer, _Collected Articles (Fourth Edition)_

 

 

\--- 

Ron supposed he should be afraid.

They were charging into what seemed to be certain death, after all. But he found that he was so afraid for Hermione that there wasn’t room for anyone else. He refused to entertain the notion that she was anything but alive and well. He’d go mad, otherwise. Well, _more_ mad.

It wasn’t exactly sane, what he was up to.

The large wrought iron gate which led to the Manor grounds lay just ahead. He could see part of it from his position in the shrubs nearby. The Death Eater who had been their ticket to the place was snoring softly on the ground nearby, having placidly consumed a large dose of Sleeping Potion. Behind Ron, Lila was supposedly working on the protections around the Manor, though she looked like she was doing nothing at all. Ron knew better. It was just frustrating. He needed to _move._

They were all arrayed around Lila, waiting whilst she did her work. Ginny and Harry were huddled together behind the trunk of a large tree and Neville and Luna lay in a snowdrift against the fence. In the cold, clear night they looked almost as tightly wound as Ron felt.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before Lila spoke again.

“Go,” she said, hurrying them up and over the fence. Ron stepped forward, only to be arrested when Lila grabbed the back of his shirt. “Stop!” she said sharply. “I lost it. I lost it. Hold on.” A bead of sweat rolled down her neck. “…Okay, I’ve got it. Go.”

Ron shut his eyes briefly as he hoisted himself up, fervently hoping she really had got it.

There was a small copse of trees before the ground flattened and gave way to meticulously trimmed hedges and sculpted flower beds. The Manor itself was still a distance away, the foreboding structure looming large and austere in the pale moonlight. There were people out there, too, pockets of winter-garbed figures around fires and a few lone sentries patrolling closer to where Ron and the others were hidden.

To make matters worse, conditions were pretty much as bad as they could be for stealth. With the moon shining almost blindingly down through the utterly cloudless sky, it was the closest thing to broad daylight the night offered.

Harry crouched next to Lila. “How do we do this?” he asked.

“By steps. We get closer and we go from there,” she said.

“If I got under the Cloak—”

“We can’t support you from here. I need a better firing position. Then we can talk about the Cloak.”

Ron felt like he was a few seconds away from grabbing the Cloak and going to get Hermione himself. She was somewhere in that poncy rich monstrosity. Scott had better be keeping her safe. It was his bloody job, wasn’t it?

“Low and fast,” Lila was saying. “Stay with me, but stay loose. Give me a head start.”

“That guard’s coming back,” Ginny whispered. She pointed out the patroller.

“Stay here.”

Lila shot forward, close to the ground and below the top edge of the hedges. There was a decorative pedestal set in the middle of the next line of hedges; she stepped around it and rushed straight into the sentry. They fell out of sight, though Ron could guess what happened next.

A moment later Lila’s head reappeared, and she beckoned them forward.

They advanced by cautious steps from hedge to hedge, always mindful of how easily they might be seen. Ron kept a nervous eye on the upper-storey windows of the Manor, but they remained dark. Of course, that didn’t guarantee no one was looking out of them.

Eventually they came to a point where it seemed like going any farther was impossible. Ahead, the garden was a flat expanse of grass, in the centre of which stood an elaborate fountain. Snatchers stood arrayed around several bonfires, the flickering light winking off the frozen water. Ron reckoned they were waiting for some poor sod to let a ‘Voldemort’ slip.

Lila silently assessed the situation and then knelt behind a large decorative planter. They all gathered near.

“We need another entrance,” she said. “A side door or an approachable window. Harry, get under the Cloak and go right. Keep your distance.”

“I’ll go with,” Ginny volunteered.

“Not this time, Gin,” Harry said, unfolding the Cloak. “I’ve got to be fast.”

“The map says there’s a servant’s quarters somewhere on that side, so look for that,” Lila told him. “Remember your footsteps will be visible. Try to stay in any other tracks you find.”

Ron wasn’t fond of having to sit and do nothing whilst Harry was out there alone. He didn’t voice any objections because he didn’t have an alternative besides taking the Cloak himself. But it was Harry’s Cloak, always had been, and Ron knew how things worked. Harry and Ginny had been giving him sidelong glances, obviously worried over his state of mind. He ignored them. _He_ wasn’t the one they should be worried about.

He’d be no help to Hermione if he got himself killed, though. He clenched his jaw and thought about her and not about how he wanted to do something, _anything_.

“If we have to shoot, I’m the only one who can see Harry and I’m going to direct your fire,” Lila instructed. “You shoot at what I tell you to shoot at and nothing else.”

“Yeah, just… be careful,” Harry said, looking concerned. Then he disappeared beneath the Cloak.

Ron watched Harry’s footprints go off towards the Manor. “Can you tell where Hermione is?” he asked Lila

“Somewhere in or near the house. Scott, too. I think they’re together,” Lila answered.

Ginny was lying in the snow on her stomach. She pushed her face closer to the hedgerow, peering through as best she could. “Won’t Scott know we’re here?”

“He might, if he’s not distracted.”

“This place is huge… Could be hard to find him,” Ginny observed.

A sudden clap of thunder tore through the night, shockingly close. It took Ron a second to realise it wasn’t thunder at all, but an explosion. Shattered timbers flew up into the night sky as great gouts of brilliant flame billowed from the far side of the Manor. Within moments the stables were engulfed in fire and smoke began to roil off the adjacent side of the Manor, as well.

“That’s him,” Lila said.

Neville gaped at the destruction. “What’s going on?”

“Scott and Hermione are already loose,” Lila said. “Hold your fire and let the distraction work.”

“Come on, Harry,” Ron muttered as he watched the Manor begin to burn. “Find them.”

 

***---~**~---***

 

Hermione couldn’t see the explosion from this side of the Manor, but she still felt it. The deep thump reverberated in her chest.

“I thought you were setting a fire!” she exclaimed.

“Satchel charges. For effect,” Scott said blasely.

She couldn’t argue with results. The enemies in the front garden were rushing towards the commotion. Cries of alarm spread through the night.

“We have to tell Harry what’s happened. I hope everyone is still at…” Hermione’s face went momentarily blank and then filled with outrage. “Did you do something to my threads?!” she hissed into Scott’s ear.

“It was a precaution.”

“Then where am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere but here.” Scott suddenly went still. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

“Looks like they weren’t content to wait,” Scott said. Hermione suddenly found herself pulled off Scott’s back and dangling from his arms. “Take her!”

She had no idea what was going on until the air shimmered in front of them and Harry appeared.

“Should’ve known you’d get free,” he said, smile wide and relieved. “Hermione, are you all right?”

“Broken ankle,” she breathed, almost rendered speechless with relief at seeing him alive and well and knowing Ron and Ginny must be close by.

“Be careful, be quick,” Scott said as he deposited Hermione into Harry’s arms. “Don’t wait up.”

“Right,” Harry said. He stood still whilst Scott tugged the Cloak into place. “I can get her back to the others and then—”

“Go!”

Harry went. Hermione did her best to keep her legs tight to avoid kicking out the Cloak, but the pain was getting to her again.

She tried to distract herself. “Harry, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” she whispered to him.

“Can’t it wait?” he panted, leaning forward to peek around another row of hedges.

“It’s important, I _need_ to say I’m so—”

“Hermione, I am so glad to see you again but please just shut it,” Harry said in one strained breath.

He carried her about halfway out into the garden and then rounded the corner of a hedgerow. There, Hermione saw Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna and Lila all crowded in the shadows. The tightness in Hermione’s chest eased slightly at seeing Ron; he looked worried but unharmed.

“They’re back,” Lila said. Harry approached her and bent forward slightly; understanding, she pulled the Cloak off.

Ron’s face lit up. “Hermione!” he exclaimed, rushing to her side. Harry handed her off as gently as he was able.

“Careful! Ouch,” she said, accepting Ron’s short but fierce kiss. “I’ve broken my ankle. I’m so glad you’re all right!”

“ _Me?_ Bloody hell, we couldn’t find you. I didn’t know what happened.”

“I’m honestly not sure.” Hermione clung to Ron’s arms as he lowered her into a sitting position. “I must have fallen into a cellar or the like. Scott got himself captured looking for me.”

“Was he behind you?” Neville asked. From his position on the right flank, he could see around the hedge in the direction Harry had carried her from.

“Yes, he shouldn’t be far behind,” Hermione assumed. Seeing Luna again, she remembered what had just happened and her heart plummeted. “Luna… what are you doing here?”

“Helping you,” Luna said.

Scott burst out between two of the hedges and crawled across a short open space until he was next to Lila. “Hello,” he said.

“Time to go,” Lila informed them. “Ron, you carry Hermione. Harry, you’re out front with the Cloak.”

“Well, it seems like you have it under control,” Scott noted. “I’ll screen with Harry.”

Then, everyone’s attention was caught by an eruption of light and sound. At the other side of the gardens, behind the Manor, the grounds were suddenly alive with spells. Destruction and panic resounded as what sounded like a small war broke out. Spells were flying out from the other side of the burning stables, cutting through the night. The Death Eaters grouped around the fountain all stood facing the commotion, shifting uncertainly and shouting questions to others running ahead.

“Or, maybe not,” Scott said.

“The Order.” Lila flipped the fire select on her weapon with an ominous click. “Call Strauss.”

Hermione clapped her hands over her ears as Lila began to fire.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Tonks took another deep, calming breath of the bitter night air. The cold made her throat stick, and she swallowed to dispel the sensation. Overhead, the moon shone down like a pale star. It was dark beneath the trees, but not nearly as dark as she would have liked. The snow glowed white and blue in patches where the shadows of the pines didn’t fall.

Getting to the edge of the Malfoy property had been simple enough. Getting inside would be the real trick. Bill could probably bring down the wards given enough time and resources, neither of which were available. The Order was fully relying on Sophie, a woman who was practically a stranger. But she had cured Remus and could, according to her, get them onto the grounds the same way Lila must have for Harry. So that had to be possible, or the Order’s would-be incursion would go no farther.

That was assuming they were going at all. They couldn’t get in without Sophie’s help, but she’d made it very clear she wouldn’t be granting access unless there was a sign Harry required Order intervention. Tonks didn’t know what sort of sign would suffice; however, Sophie was continually checking her Muggle whatsit, so that was one possibility. From their position in the woods at the rim of the Manor’s protections they were too far away to see the house itself. A wrought iron fence, seething with spells, marked the property edge.

Arrayed about Tonks was every Order member capable of fighting. It wasn’t a very large group — a fact that escaped no one — but it was larger than it had been a few months ago. They’d be no match for the full force of the Death Eaters. They weren’t supposed to be, though; not tonight. They were a distraction, nothing more.

Tonks blew on her hands, joints aching in the cold. Whatever was happening, she hoped it happened soon.

“Here,” Remus said, taking her hands in his larger ones.

“Bloody cold out,” Tonks complained. She looked upwards. “Not even cloudy, ‘course not. That’d be easier.”

Remus nodded tiredly. “If things go well for Harry, it may not matter.” He looked around Tonks and sighed. “I’d better intercede before Alastor offends our only way in.”

Tonks looked the same way to see Moody questioning Sophie yet again. The expression on Sophie’s face remained polite, which said more about her people skills than Mad-Eye’s. As much as Tonks liked and respected him, she knew it was just a matter of time before he wiped that polite smile off Sophie’s face.

Tonks returned to watching the empty woods, trying not to shiver. She was just about to settle down in the snow when the sharp report of an explosion ripped through the night like a thunderclap. Seconds later, the flickering orange light of a roaring fire filled the night sky.

“Bloody hell,” Tonks breathed, eyes wide with surprise.

That was a sign if she’d ever heard one.

The other Order members were stirring, rising from their bored stupor at the sudden commotion.

“Good enough for you?” Moody growled at Sophie.

Sophie looked at her Muggle device one last time before acceding. “That’s probably Scott,” she said. She went over to the fence, stood there for a moment, and then leaned in to grip the bars. “Right here,” she said.

Tonks didn’t know what the other woman was doing, but if she was touching the fence at all then the wards must have been broken. Tonks started to approach her own section of fence when Sophie spoke again, stopping her.

“No! Here, where I am,” Sophie said sharply. “Climb right here and don’t touch anything else.”

It took a moment to get everyone over the fence (Doge especially had a bit of trouble with it). Tonks waited impatiently, watching the light of the unseen fire grow as distant shouts filtered through the trees.

“Spread out! Wands up, eyes open,” Moody barked as they all assembled.

Tonks eagerly pushed ahead at the fore, Remus at her side. The roar of the fire and the crash of collapsing timbers was more than enough ambient noise to cover the sound of their advance. The snow crunched beneath her feet, deep where it had gathered around the brush and trunks of trees. Then it began to shallow, and where the treeline ended the snow turned into a blank white expanse that stretched to the first of the hedgerows marking the garden proper.

The trees were the best cover available, but staying within their protective shroud also left the Order too far from the action to be accurate. Briefly, Tonks thought of Lila’s Muggle weapon with its steely length, solid stock and convenient sights. If only Tonks’ wand could be similarly outfitted. But, she had to wave her wand around to make it work; which was fine. She didn’t mind getting up close and personal, anyway, especially with the lousy lot of opportunists and bigots frantically trying to douse the fire.

The Order rushed across the open space, committing to the fray. Sprinting forward, Tonks spotted a lone Snatcher just ahead, a straggler. The Snatcher saw the Order immediately and turned to flee. He made it a yard or two at the most before he collapsed into the snow; sharp, mechanical snaps rang out at the same time. Tonks glanced back over her shoulder and saw Sophie kneeling in the snow, her compact Muggle wand pulled tight against her shoulder.

Just as Tonks reached the first line of hedges what looked to be about ten Death Eaters rounded the left corner of the Manor and ran along its side towards the flaming stables. She ducked beneath the hedgerow and waited until they reached the halfway point before standing and casting the first spell of the fight. Other Order members moved farther up the line, closer to the burning building. Arrayed in a loose half circle they began to fire, and a barrage of spells streaked at the enemy.

The Death Eaters could not have been caught any more off-guard. Almost a dozen of them were on the ground before the rest realised what was happening. Caught in the open with the roaring flames behind them, those that stood and fought were quickly cut down; those that chose to flee fared little better. Within moments, the shattered remnants of Voldemort’s forces were huddled behind whatever scant cover they could find, blindly returning ineffective fire.

Tonks knew it wouldn’t last. There were still an unknown number of Death Eaters on the other side of the Manor and within it. But until they mustered a response, the Order controlled the field.

She only hoped that Harry, wherever he was, could make use of the moment.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Harry had no idea what was happening.

He was about sixty-percent deaf and getting deafer every second Lila continued to fire. That wasn’t the direct cause of his confusion, but it certainly wasn’t helping.

One moment, he’d been quietly infiltrating the Manor grounds. The next, the place was exploding, and Hermione and Scott were already free, so Harry carried Hermione to safety and they’d all met up, nice and neat. But then the moment after that — just when it seemed like they’d got away with it — there were spells and bullets all over the place. Now he found himself countering spells coming Lila’s way and wondering if they would all live long enough for any of it to be explained.

Harry wasn’t a stranger to Muggle firearms. Not anymore. He’d seen them used a time or two and seen the results, as well: he remembered watching Death Eaters tumble to the floor as they had tried to enter the bank. But the sheer, brutal, just plain fucking _unfair_ power of the things had never struck him as it did while he watched the Death Eaters clustered about the fountain just… melt away. Lila’s SAW was spitting death at an incredible clip, and at this range and target density it wasn’t so much a fight as it was a mass execution.

He didn’t want to see it. He just couldn’t look away, not when there were spells to block. It was over soon enough, and then Lila was shooting at targets far enough away that they were hard to make out. But in the back of Harry’s mind, a numb part of himself wondered if this was really the road to righteous victory; or the road to anything at all. Maybe none of this was about who was right and who was wrong — or at least, who was _more_ right and who was _more_ wrong — just who was dead and who would soon be dead and who could stay alive long enough for it to matter.

The piercing clamour of Lila’s weapon suddenly ceased. “Reloading,” she said.

Scott had pulled a rifle with a folding stock out of Lila’s black bag and was firing single, precise shots back at anyone who cast in their direction. As soon as Lila slapped the top of her gun back down, pulled the bolt and began to fire again, he turned to Harry.

“We can’t get stuck,” he shouted over the roar of the machinegun. “We got a call to make, right now.”

“What do you mean?” Harry yelled back.

Scott pushed Harry’s head down as several spells flashed overhead, fired several rounds back, then said, “He knows! Riddle jacked Hermione’s mind, he’s out there poking around right now!”

Harry was besieged by a multitude of strong emotions that he simply did not have the time to feel. The shock of the bullets breaking over his skin somehow made it easier to focus; the physical numbness seemed to translate at least partially to his mental state.

This was it.

He wasn’t ready, but he never would be.

He ducked down and crawled over to where Hermione was huddled with Ron against the hedge. Whatever happened next, it was clear she wouldn’t be able to fight. But there was something equally important that had to be seen to.

Harry pulled the sword from his pack and pressed it into Hermione’s arms. “You’ve got to get rid of the cup,” he told her as spells and bullets cut through the air around them.

The years they had spent together had given them both many reasons to be afraid. But Harry had rarely seen so much fear in his friend’s eyes, and he knew it wasn’t for herself.

“Please be careful, Harry,” she told him, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. _“Please.”_

He knew better than to try and promise that. He turned and put a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Get her out of here.”

Ron’s expression was a mess of conflicting emotions and instincts. “I…”

“You have to go.”

For a moment, Ron looked like he was about to refuse. Then his jaw set, and he nodded tightly. “I’ll catch up,” he said fiercely. “Hogwarts, right?”

“Where else?” Harry said.

He turned away from his closest friends, the two people who had stood by him from the beginning to the end, and he said nothing else because he couldn’t bring himself to get any closer to a goodbye.

“You gotta take me,” Scott told him, firing off another round as they began their retreat. “I can’t get myself out of this mess.”

Lila’s gunfire beat at their backs and then slowly diminished, turning higher pitched as the roar dwindled to sharp cracking and echoing report.

What happened next was a blur of fleeting impressions: flashing colours in the bitter night air, white snow crunching beneath their feet, the ice-wreathed trunks of trees and then a snap as the world twisted.

And there was Hogwarts on top of the cliffs, windows glittering against a starry night sky, ramparts gleaming under the pale moon.

“Harry?” someone said.

He turned, blinking, coming back to himself. It was Neville, his face stiff in the cold.

“What’s our plan?” Neville asked.

A plan. Right. It was all falling apart; or coming together, Harry couldn’t tell. They needed a plan.

“Riddle will be here,” he said. “We’ve got to get on the grounds and into the castle. We’re going to set a trap for him in the Room of Requirement.”

“What sort of trap?”

“Whatever we can come up with,” Harry told him. “If you’ve got an idea, let’s hear it.”

“Could we drop something on him?” Ginny said. “Fred and George used to stick food to the ceiling over my bed so it’d drop on me. We could use something a lot heavier.”

Harry stared at her. “Gin, that’s brilliant.”

“It might work,” she said with a modest shrug.

“Sometimes the simple things work best,” Scott said. “You guys go set up. I’ll clear the school.”

Harry understood what he meant. “What are you going to do about Snape?”

“Don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I find him.”

That was a conundrum Harry decided he just didn’t have time for. “All right, get us over the wall.”

Scott bypassed Hogwarts’ protections faster than ever, no doubt perfecting the task through practise. The snow on the grounds was crisp and untouched. Their path of entry would be extremely obvious, though Harry supposed it didn’t matter at this point. There wouldn’t be any clever escape, not this time. One way or another, he’d never be sneaking into his home with his heart in his mouth again.

With most of the student body either on the run, incarcerated, or home for the holiday, making their way up to the Room was a simple matter. They ran into the Fat Friar at one point; his eyes widened comically, and then he turned and floated casually away as if he hadn’t seen them at all.

Outside the tapestry that hid the Room, Scott briefly knelt to the floor and began checking his magazines. He looked up at Harry. “See you when I see you,” he said.

Harry wasn’t saying goodbye to him, either. “Yeah.”

As Scott disappeared into the dark halls to see to his work, Harry and the others entered the Room.

Harry surveyed the mountains of rubbish, then looked to his friends. “Let’s have at it.”

 

***---~**~---***

 

It was not the first time Scott had skulked through the pitch-black halls of Hogwarts. Previously, though, his skulking had been intended to avoid conflict. Now, he was hunting.

Without the Map at his disposal finding the Carrows would be difficult. They might be asleep in the Professor’s quarters, or they might be roaming the school along with Filch, looking for someone to punish. Scott might be lucky enough to run across them, but he couldn’t count on it. Hogwarts was a big place. And the longer he spent in the halls, the more likely he was to come across someone he _wasn’t_ looking for. Given the task at hand, he needed to keep the regular staff and the students unaware. Especially since the Slytherins ran the joint now, and he knew which side of things they’d come down on.

Dumbledore’s portrait might know where to find the Carrows. Problem was, Snape would be up there. And Snape was a wildcard. The seemingly-traitorous Headmaster might be willing to blow his cover for the Chosen One (maybe). But for Scott? Doubtful.

There was a way for Snape to stay uninvolved while not revealing his true loyalties, just in case he would still be needed in his undercover role. He wouldn’t care for the nature of the option. Which was fine, as Scott didn’t plan on asking.

Scott’s first obstacle was the gargoyle. He figured he’d have to disable it manually and then try to move the damn thing but was surprised to find that listing various candies provided results. Snape was more sentimental than Scott would have guessed. At the top of the escalator he was confronted by the familiar double doors. He listened for a moment but couldn’t hear anything. Snape seemed something of a night owl and Scott didn’t think he could count on him being in bed. There was no point in subterfuge, though, when he wasn’t expected.

He knocked sharply on the door.

There was a short delay and then Snape opened the door, appearing irritable and tired. “What is—”

To Snape’s credit, he did try to fight back. But the second his wand clattered to the floor, released by his newly broken hand and wrist, was the second he lost whatever slim chance he might have had. Scott was in close quarters and in his element. Snape’s head bounced off the edge of the door and then he was reeling back and Scott was right there with him, delivering sharp blows to the throat, groin and joints, clinically breaking bones, tearing ligaments and smashing cartilage.

Scott let off for a second, judging how close Snape was to passing out from sheer trauma. When the battered Headmaster began to sink towards the floor, Scott caught him and wrapped his arms around Snape’s neck and head in a choke hold.

“You know, it really would be easier for everyone involved if you just didn’t survive this thing,” Scott mused as Snape’s broken fingers scraped ineffectually at his arms, growing weaker by the second. “Thing is, I think it would be easier for you, too.”

Snape’s eyes rolled back, and he went limp. Scott lowered him to the floor and then used Snape’s wand to construct and cast a Stunner. Snape’s body shook slightly with the impact, and Scott judged his former professor would be down for the count for at least a couple hours.

Only then did he turned to acknowledge Dumbledore’s portrait.

“He’s alive, stop yelling,” Scott told Dumbledore, along with all the other portraits that were aghast. “He’s got an airtight excuse for staying out of it.”

Dumbledore’s eyes were flashing. “Scott, I had hoped—”

“You can be angry about it later. Where are the Carrows?”

Dumbledore was less than pleased, but at least he was still quick on the uptake. “Either in Severus’ old office or patrolling the halls. I—”

“Thanks.” Scott turned to leave. “This is ending tonight, just FYI. If it doesn’t, Snape can write me a thank you note or something, I don’t know. Do wizards have those edible arrangements things? I like those.”

Scott hurried through the halls, every passing moment pressing on him with increasing urgency. He didn’t think Riddle would show up with a whole unit in tow, not with the secrecy he had to maintain, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t call for help once the trap was sprung. Scott’s job was to ensure that any response would come from outside the school and stay there. Which could be problematic, given he was only one person. He would be counting on backup from Lil, and the sooner the better.

Snape’s office was deep in the dungeons. Scott went swiftly down endless stone staircases until he was in the chilly depths of the school. The door to Snape’s office was ajar and there was a faint light coming from inside.

Scott peered through the opening and saw a woman sleeping in the chair behind Snape’s old desk. He leaned inside and rapped his knuckles against the doorpost.

Alecto Carrow started slightly and sat up, blinking heavily. “Huh? Who’s that?”

“Snape sent me,” Scott said. “He’s looking for your brother.”

“He said he’d be late at the library,” Alecto yawned. She blinked again and looked at Scott more closely. “Who’d you say you were?”

Scott shot her twice in the head. She slumped forward onto the desk, her blood beginning to soak through several layers of what looked like student essays. Maybe they’d all get an Outstanding.

Back up he went, headed for the library. He found it smelling like it had gone largely unused. Books sat uneven on the shelves, their rows ragged and dusty. There were piles of texts on various tables, chairs carelessly askew. As much as Scott had his differences with Pince, he knew the militant librarian would never have allowed the place to fall into such a state if she had it her way. Obviously, Pince was no longer as in charge as she used to be.

Scott remembered Amycus from the top of the tower, but the man sitting in front of a pile of books had his head down as he read something. Scott didn’t normally judge a book by its cover, but the ones on the table were so clearly Dark in nature that it was obvious the man was doing a little personal research. It was probably Amycus. Still, Scott needed visual confirmation.

He let his right hand hang back behind his leg, concealing the handgun. “Amycus?”

The man jumped, startled. “Huh?”

“Been awhile,” Scott said, recognizing him immediately.

Amycus squinted at Scott. “Do I know you?”

“Nah.”

Scott spent the next few minutes getting back to the Entrance Hall. The school remained quiet, which was a good sign. He’d know when Riddle showed up; the Dark Lord was impossible to miss in the shape once he was close enough, no matter how turbulent things became. Scott slipped out a side door and then stood in the snow for a moment, assessing the grounds.

Enemies on approach would probably use the front gate. They owned the place, after all, and didn’t have any reason to hide. Riddle would likely march right through the front door on his way to the Room. The school remained impervious to most forms of magical travel, so anyone he brought with him would logically remain at either the gate or the main doors. The question was whether Riddle would bring anyone to prevent another intrusion by the Order, or if he was too worried about someone else discovering the Horcruxes to allow his minions to assist, even indirectly.

The Order’s surprise attack at the Manor had served quite well as a distraction so far, but Scott figured they had already withdrawn; they didn’t have the legs for a protracted fight. Whatever was left of Riddle’s forces at the Manor wouldn’t be in any shape to respond to another firefight. Plus, Scott was counting on Rahvalod’s forces to be withdrawn for at least forty-eight hours. The crafty mercenary would let the dust settle before he poked his head out. With the Manor burning to the ground and Riddle in no state to give orders, the opposing force was directionless and without a centralized chain of command for the time being. The inside of the school was clear, or at least as clear as it was going to get. Which meant any direct threat to Hogwarts would come locally.

Scott had his eye on Hogsmeade, in fact.

Hogsmeade was more of a trap than a town. The small village had been in Death Eater hands almost as soon as the Ministry had fallen. It was the only destination that a lot of Muggle-born students were familiar with, outside of the Alley, and there was little doubt that the rail station had played host to a political purge at the start of the school year.

Scott didn’t know if there was a dedicated garrison there. All he knew was that a fight in Hogsmeade would draw the attention of every Death Eater in the area, and probably a few beyond. Any enemy tied up in Hogsmeade was an enemy who wouldn’t be able to go after Harry, should the encounter at Hogwarts become loud enough to draw attention.

Unfortunately, the black bag he had slung around his shoulders was his only ammo supply. He still had a bunch of handgun magazines taken from Hermione’s handbag, but a sidearm was a poor choice for extended combat. Lila had packed a good amount of magazines for her SG 551 but they had been sharing bag space with the bulky box magazines of the M249. Scott would be about as well equipped as he could have hoped for considering the circumstances, but he was limited in how long he could engage at range. This was, in his estimation, the biggest advantage of the wand, even beyond its versatility.

Maybe he’d get some backup before too long. Or maybe he’d be fighting Death Eaters until they overwhelmed him again. Either way, the important thing was buying enough time for Harry. It didn’t really matter how the fight went for Scott, so long as it kept going.

The moon was as bright over Hogwarts as it had been over the Manor. Scott stood at the edge of the road to Hogsmeade, looking out at the lights glittering far across the field. There was no cover on approach and no chance of not being seen if anyone was looking.

Scott slung his rifle onto his back and began to walk up the road, his tread quick but casual.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Tonks had been waiting for the moment to arrive, and now here it was. The tide was finally turning as the Death Eaters reformed on the opposite side of the Manor and began to give some real opposition.

There had been a serious amount of gunfire coming from somewhere on the other side of the gardens and for a little bit it had seemed like the Death Eaters might never regroup enough to put up an actual fight. Tonks didn’t know what was happening over there, but she could guess. Lila and Scott were probably shooting a whole lot of people. Or had, anyway, before the shooting suddenly stopped.

Tonks would have guessed that they shot _some_ people, not necessarily a whole lot, but as the minutes ticked by and the Death Eaters failed to overwhelm the Order it became clear that the enemy force was badly wounded. Perhaps even mortally wounded. The Order held their ground for far, far longer than even Tonks’ most optimistic appraisal would have allowed. Even now, when the Death Eaters were finally putting some effort in countering the Order’s assault, the pushback wasn’t enough to dislodge the Order’s position. It was just getting to the point that the Order had to start thinking about the possibility of getting bogged down and locked in place, not fully overrun.

Hell, Tonks reckoned they had a fighting chance of storming what was left of the Manor. But the Death Eaters could be reinforced at any time, whereas everyone who could fight for the Order _was_ fighting for the Order. And they hadn’t survived this long by pushing their luck.

Tonks dropped back down behind the mostly destroyed marble column that was serving as her increasingly poor cover. “I think it’s about time to scarper!” she shouted to Remus as a Blasting Curse tore a deep furrow in the grass nearby.

“Agreed,” Remus said.

His face was smudged with dirt and flecks of blood. They’d both sustained a few minor hits that hadn’t disabled them, but the small injuries were starting to pile up. Duelling at a distance like this was a far slower and less deadly affair than the close-range combat wizards generally favoured, given the extra time to react and the relative ease of dodging. Unless you were Sophie; her Muggle wand had been doing a disturbing amount of damage.

“Alastor!” Remus shouted towards Moody. “Let’s not allow them to trap us!”

Moody whipped a few more spells towards the Death Eaters, his normal eye alight with a vicious fire. “All right you lot, we’re retreating!” he roared. “You know what to do!”

As one, the Order reached into their pouches and tossed handfuls of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder towards the Manor. The powder hit the ground and immediately dispersed, creating a wall of absolute blackness between the Order and the enemy.

Tonks jumped up to her feet. There was a lull in the incoming spells as the Death Eaters stopped in confusion. Sophie, for some reason, was still clicking away with her Muggle tool, apparently undeterred by the barrier of blackness.

Tonks gestured to her. “Come on, we’re going!”

Sophie blinked. “Oh, that’s why they’re just standing there. That’s very clever, okay! I’m disengaging.”

They were halfway back to the woods before spells began flying through the Darkness Powder. None of them came close to hitting, and then the Order was cloaked even further by the trunks of the trees.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tonks saw Sophie split off from the group and veer right. She turned to look and was surprised to see Lila not too far off, along with — bloody hell, was that Ron carrying Hermione? Tonks quickly turned around to look back the way she’d come, but there was no sign of Harry or any of his other friends. She hoped that was a good thing, and not an indication of something gone wrong.

Whatever was going on, Sophie needed to rejoin the group soon because they couldn’t get past the fence without her.

A few seconds later, Sophie was running back to the Order and Lila, Ron and Hermione disappeared farther out in the woods.

Any questions Tonks had were forestalled as Sophie helped everyone through the invisible barrier and over the fence. Mad-Eye did a quick headcount and then the clearing began to the fill with the sounds of Disapparating Order members.

“Was that Lila with Ron and Hermione?” Tonks asked as the Order popped away to safety.

“Yes,” Sophie said distractedly. She was digging through her coat; after a second, she held out a small paper bag. “Give this to Kylie for me, and tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

Tonks took the bag, confused. “Aren’t you coming back with us? What is this?”

“It’s candy. Don’t let her eat it right before bed, okay, tell her I said that. Or make sure she gets it after dinner.” Sophie patted her other pockets. “I think that’s all. I told her I’d get her some Muggle candy. I think I squished it a little… Or maybe Lil squished it.” She hoisted her compact Muggle weapon. “Don’t let her keep the whole bag or she’ll probably eat it when she’s not supposed to. And don’t let her let Trevor eat all of it, she won’t say anything even if he is.”

Tonks was no less confused. “I thought you were coming back with us?”

Sophie glanced towards the trees. “Sorry, there’s no time. Go, please!”

If she’d had a few more moments, Tonks probably would have tried to get more answers. But there was no telling when the Death Eaters would give pursuit and decide to prevent Apparition. She tucked the bag of sweets into her coat. “Well, good luck, then.”

“You, too,” Sophie said.

Tonks turned on the spot and disappeared, leaving Sophie behind.

 

***---~**~---***

 

“Ow! Ouch, just a moment—”

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m trying not to—”

“No, I know. It’s all right.”

Hermione was undergoing the most curious sensation. She felt like she was sleepwalking, despite being fully awake; nothing felt _real_ for reasons she couldn’t describe. Her world was utter darkness that seemed to shift around her. She knew that she was still in Ron’s arms, she could feel them.

“I have to go. You can catch up,” Lila said from somewhere nearby.

“Wait! We might need you for the Horcrux,” Ron said. “They fight back, remember?”

“Fine, I have to go downstairs anyway. Hurry,” Lila said tersely.

Footsteps, fast enough that Lila had to be running. Hermione had no idea where they were, but it smelled familiar.

“Ron, I can’t see. Scott had to break my thread, I don’t know where I am,” she told him as calmly as she was able.

“Really? What’s that like?”

“Very unpleasant. Can we please—”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Ron was still a Secret Keeper, so that was easy enough to address. A minute later and they were in the kitchen of Grimmauld. The calm of the place was bizarre, a sudden scene of normalcy. Well, mostly normalcy. Lila was digging through the bags of Muggle equipment behind the table. Hermione had been eating at that table what felt like a lifetime ago.

“We’ll do it all at once, quick as we can,” she panted, gripping the edge of the table as Ron slid her into a chair. “I’ll drop it out of the strongbox and you chop it straight away.”

Ron pulled the sword out of its bag and held it at the ready. “Got it.”  
  
Another set of footsteps came from behind. “I’m here! I’m here now,” Sophie said, speeding into the kitchen. “Lil?”

“I’m ready,” Lila said, standing and facing the table.

Hermione saw no need to delay any further. She took the strongbox from her handbag and in one smooth motion, flipped open the lid and dumped the cup onto the table.

Ron swung immediately and struck true. The blade cut clean through the cup and bit deep into the table. There was a bright flash and then a bang that knocked Hermione’s head into the back of her chair and sent the sword flying from Ron’s hands, where it clattered loudly against the oven.

“Fuck. Ugh. _Fuck_.” Ron flexed his hands, jaw clenched with pain.

Hermione could relate. “At least it’s done,” she said, rubbing at the rapidly growing contusion on the back of her head.

Lila had quickly returned to the black bags. “Sophie, load up.”

Ron shook his hands briskly a few more times and then stepped around the table. “You’re going to Hogwarts, right?”

“Yes,” Lila said as she rearranged several box magazines. “Do what you need to do for Hermione. We’re out of here in five.”

Hermione’s heart sank. She had taken the proper medicine, but her mangled ankle was a complicated injury. No doubt Madame Pomfrey could have sped things up; Hermione’s magical acumen was nothing to sneeze at, but she was not a Healer. None of them were, at least in the magical sense. Whatever splint or cast Sophie could offer would not be particularly helpful in the short term.

Ron’s hand fell on her shoulder. The look on his face was one of guilt. “Hermione…”

“I know,” she said quickly. She felt like she was on the edge of a breakdown, spread thin by her capture and the invasion of her mind and all the violence that followed. She was held together by outside pressure, sheer momentum, and if she let herself be still for too long she’d just fall apart. “Go help Harry and I won’t be long.”

They kissed, and then all too soon Lila was headed for the stairs with Sophie and Ron following. And just like that, Hermione was left alone in the kitchen.

Her ankle was feeling a bit numb, which was an improvement over the pain. She sat in the chair while the potion did its prickly work, and every second felt like the longest hour of her life.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Scott was spotted on the road about a hundred yards out. In truth, he was probably spotted long before that, but at such a distance he could have been anybody. It wasn’t until he got closer that he saw movement in response to his approach. He was strolling up the road that would turn into Hogsmeade’s main street when what looked like a couple members of the town watch turned out to greet him. The two men weren’t dressed like Death Eaters, though Hogsmeade wouldn’t be much of a trap if they were.

Scott waved in greeting.

The men didn’t seem to know what to make of Scott’s arrival from the school. “Evening, friend,” the man on the left said absurdly, considering it was getting close to midnight. “You come from Hogwarts?”

Scott walked right up to them. “The Dark Lord has business there tonight,” he said, coming to a halt. “We’re to stay away, for the time being.”

The two watchmen shifted nervously at the news. The man on the left nodded and began to turn away.

The man on the right was more observant. He was eyeing Scott’s gear suspiciously. “Where’s Amycus, then?”

Scott now knew everything he needed to. He drew his pistol unhurriedly and shot them before they could react.

He stood there for a moment, waiting for the outcry. The two men must have been the only sentries on this side of town, though, because there was no alarm. No one was close enough to hear his suppressed handgun. That gave him time to create a more dramatic distraction.

Not _too_ long, of course. Riddle had a date with a trap, but not a reservation. He could arrive at any moment.

Scott traced the men’s footsteps back to their point of origin. They’d been inside a nearby two-storey building. The upper windows were dark, likely where they’d been watching from. There were some lights on downstairs. He peered through a window but didn’t see anyone. It was possible, given the hour, that the sentries had been the only ones awake. Or perhaps much of the enemy had responded to the attack on the Manor.

Scott returned to the dead men. He picked them up and then trudged out into the nearby field, the moon high and bright above.


	46. That Terrifying Momentum Part II

**46**

**That Terrifying Momentum**

**Part II**

\---

_“You don’t know what the devil looks like until he catches you.”_

—Kharadjai adage

\---

Hartley considered himself a good soldier.

He’d never aspired to such. He’d been part of a Diagon Alley group for the first few months of what he’d come to think of as ‘this Business’. It had been his intention to return to accounting once he and the men he was stationed with finished removing the undesirables from his home area. But his efficiency must have caught someone’s eye, because he’d been shifted from post to post, doing his duty and impatiently waiting for this bloody Business to be over with. There couldn’t be _that_ many lowlifes in Britain, could there? Well, not counting the Muggles.

He had even tagged along with that Rahvalod’s crew for a bit, which hadn’t suited him. Too similar to what he imagined being in an actual army would be like. Rules and practise; constant practise. It wasn’t the rules Hartley minded. No, he primarily objected to all the bloody exercise. That and the distinctly unpleasant whiff of Muggle-doings that had hung over the whole proceedings. He’d left at the first opportunity and landed at Hogsmeade, his first command.

It wasn’t much a command, but he liked to think he ran a tight ship. Why, he’d even caught a traitor or two hiding in town. Children, sure, but small traitors would eventually grow into larger ones. It was only prudent.

He even made his men wear the same robes, like a proper commander (he’d had a couple women initially, but wisely sent them back to headquarters). He had been in charge for nearly two months and there hadn’t been a single disaster. Once this Business was over with, perhaps they’d give him a medal.

He was lying in bed mentally designing such a medal when there was a rap at the door of his room. He sighed heavily and took his time putting his robe on. He opened the door to see Roberts, which was slightly concerning. Roberts was one of the more reliable people Hartley had, not as prone as some of his fellows to spot threats everywhere.

“Yes?” Hartley said, rubbing at one eye.

“I think you should see this,” Roberts told him.

Hartley went out to the hall window. He and his men were sequestered in a building on the edge of town overlooking the north field. There wasn’t much in the way of landscape features around Hogsmeade, save for a sparse scattering of scrubby trees. One such tree, Hartley saw, was burning. It flickered out in the snow like the wick of a vast white candle.

Hartley might have been imagining it, but he thought someone was sitting in front of the tree.

He sighed, deeply unhappy at the prospect of going out into the cold instead of back to bed. But it was his job to investigate every disturbance, and if some lunatic was running about burning trees then they’d need to be shipped off with the rest of the undesirables.

“Go wake everyone,” Hartley yawned, and turned to get dressed.

He met Roberts outside. It was cold out; damn cold. The moon shone down from a cloudless sky like a dead, pale sun. He looked around at his assembled men and thought someone was missing. Ah, yes: _two_ were missing.

“Where are Durlent and Togner?” he asked Roberts.

“They were supposed to be on watch, but they haven’t showed,” Roberts said.

Hartley huffed irritably. Dereliction of duty across the board, was it. If he had to be awake, then everyone else should have to be, too. “All right. Let’s see who’s burning trees.”

They trod out into the field, snow crunching beneath a parade of boots. Hartley didn’t see anyone else’s trail, so whoever had lit the tree on fire must have approached from a different angle. The closer he got, the more he was convinced that there _was_ someone sitting there. It wasn’t until they were much closer that he could see clearly through the glare from the fire, and his blood ran as cold as the night air.

There was someone sitting in front of the tree, all right. Togner was slumped forward with his hands at either side of his knees. His face was as blank and cold as the expanse of snow that surrounded him. The body hanging from the tree behind him was badly burned, but Hartley presumed it was Durlent. In the snow near Togner’s feet a message had been crudely scrawled with a dark substance that Hartley knew instinctively was blood. It read:

DOESNT LOOK THAT PURE TO ME

For a long moment, no one spoke. The fire crackled away; the column of smoke lifting above was silver-bright beneath the moon.

Hartley licked his lips, trying to find his voice. “Roberts, take half the men and find the trail of whoever did this,” he said, his words absurdly calm to his own ears. “The rest of you, put out the fire and get Durlent down.”

Hartley prided himself on what he considered to be keen investigative skills. Right away he spotted something odd: a shrivelled string protruding from the leg of Durlent’s trousers. He traced it down to the snow and found its end not far from the bloody letters. It was a sodden strand of thick thread, possibly from a clothing seam; the portion nearest to the fire was beginning to shrivel. Hartley squeezed it and was rewarded with a pulse of blood spreading between his fingers. He dropped it, sickened. Whoever had suspended Durlent from the tree had used the poor man like a quill.

He turned away, peering towards the town. He gestured to a couple of his men who weren’t doing much but watching with ghoulish interest as some of the others cut Durlent from his perch. “You, go check over that way. Look for any single tracks.”

Roberts came jogging back over a moment later. “I think we’ve got something. Looks like it was just one person.”

Hartley felt a flare of satisfaction. The hunt was on. “Good. Let’s—”

The most curious sensation came over Hartley, then. He found himself lying on his back in the snow, quite unable to breathe. The edges of his vision were going black, and soon he could see nothing but his own hand where it sat upon the snow to his right. Someone trod upon it, but Hartley didn’t feel a thing. It was as if he had been disconnected from himself, all his tethers cut in an instant. And it occurred to him that he was his body; and if he could not connect with his body, then what was he?

This was his last thought.

 

***---~**~---***

 

The waiting really was the worst part.

Harry supposed that, really, the _dying_ would probably be the worst part, if it came to that. But whatever pain might be involved, at least at the end of it all was a sort of relief. The only thing at the end of the waiting was a chance to die. So, no: death or not, waiting was the worst part. Full stop.

As he had concluded some time ago, the waiting was an unfortunate side-effect of the new way of doing things. Previously, he’d had the good fortune to stumble into his life-or-death situations with all the grace and foresight of a drunkard. Death had little sting when the reality of it was confronted so suddenly and then just as suddenly whisked away. It was always in the space after, in the ashes of that year’s conflagration, that he took the time to assess the costs, internal and external. Easier to accept things when it was too late to change them.

Now it was all planning. Planning, planning and traps, apparently. It was a good idea, Harry wasn’t disputing that. All the time and effort that had been spent in the planning stages had paid off, again and again. It was an entirely different game once one was prepared to play it. He just wished that this part, the waiting, weren’t a necessary gap in their tightly plotted functions. But that had always been his problem, hadn’t it? He couldn’t switch off.

He thought about the way Scott and Lila always looked in moments like this. Like… Well, Harry could remember at the Zoo, they’d had several large crocodiles. And there was a big, noisy, chattering crowd around the crocodile pen, all these kids and parents making a fuss, poking at the glass, yelling at the crocodiles. Like they thought the animals were entertainers, not just animals who happened to be behind glass. But the crocodiles floated in their shallow green water, utterly indifferent to it all. They didn’t care how much the people wanted to see them move. The only thing they cared about was the moment when someone would open the door in the back of the pen and toss in something to eat. Nothing else was relevant.

That, Harry thought, was how Scott and Lila looked before a fight: like crocodiles awaiting the arrival of meat; patient, but ready. Problem was, he was pretty sure they were like that because they’d been through this shite a million times before. Even sheer terror could lose its edge, apparently.

Harry was nothing but edges right now.

A small hand gripped his jaw, turning his head. His eyes met Ginny’s. She was looking at him gravely, and yet there was such empathy in her gaze that his breath caught in his throat.

“I’m right here,” she told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That was, perversely, exactly what he was afraid of.

Her eyes suddenly widened, and she looked past him.

He followed her eyeline and froze. There stood Voldemort, in the doorway. Nagini was draped over his shoulders and his red eyes were narrow with concentration as he surveyed the Room.

Harry didn’t know what he’d been expecting. A blast of ominous organ music, maybe, or a dark cloud descending. But Riddle was just a man. A powerful, twisted man, but a man nonetheless. A man who was probably a second away from seeing the enormous pile of rubble suspended about his head.

Harry found his voice. “NOW!”

Riddle barely had enough time to look in the direction of Harry’s shout when spells from all four teens hit the precariously hanging pile above the door and the whole thing came crashing down in a shattering cacophony. Shelves and wardrobes cracked and tumbled, desks bounced across the floor and several bocce balls which Ginny had strategically placed went careening into the rubbish.

Harry had seen Riddle fight before, and knew he was fast. Harry was prepared; or so he thought. It seemed no sooner had the dust begun to settle when the pile exploded outward in a deadly hail of debris. Harry was forced to duck down into cover; but not before he saw the way one of Riddle’s arms hung at an odd angle, and the blood which streamed down his bone-white face.

With an animal snarl, Riddle swept his want wide, kicking up a storm of books. Blasting Curses indiscriminately tore into the surrounds, kicking up so many paper scraps that it became hard to see.

And yet, Harry was in his element. Freed from the burden of waiting, of circuitous thought, of endless aching fear. Violence made room for nothing but its own terrifying momentum. When each single shaking moment held life at one end and death at the other, then no moment was special for it. Death was just the other side of the coin which never stopped flipping.

It was this, Harry realised in the back of his mind, that Scott had always known.

He dodged to the right. Splinters cut across his neck as Ginny disappeared behind a row of collapsing book shelves, but there was nothing he could do about it. Neville and Luna’s cover on the other side of the room was exploding and Harry could only hope they weren’t exploding with it. He emerged from behind a lopsided stack of crystal balls but immediately knew, instinctively, that he was still too slow. He abandoned his attack and kept moving. A spell sliced through the air where he had been a second before. He juked back behind a falling shelf, cut to the left again, disappeared from Riddle’s sight and then emerged slightly closer. Now he had a fraction of a second more; it was time.

He raised his wand, mouth just beginning to form the words, and something incredibly strange happened. His wand lit in his hand before he could finish his spell. A ball of light that was so dense and bright it was like a solid thing shot from his wand, and when it hit Riddle’s wand the instrument exploded with the force of a small bomb. The Dark Lord reeled backwards as fragments flayed his fingers and cut into his face.

For a silent, dumbstruck moment, Harry and Riddle stared at each other across a jagged floor of wreckage as paper scraps rained down like smouldering snow.

Harry had no idea what had just happened, but he wasn’t going to turn down an advantage. He raised his wand.

Riddle turned and fled back into the halls of Hogwarts.

Harry stood there for a second, senses beginning to return as his adrenaline slightly ebbed. His ears were ringing, and he was bleeding a fair amount, though most of it seemed superficial. He stumbled back the way he’d come and helped Ginny dig her way out of the rubble. She was bruised and there was a deep cut on her chin that sent a rivulet of blood down her neck, but otherwise seemed all right.

Her face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. Harry read in her expression the same combination of rage and panic that was racing through his veins; something close to ecstasy, though even that wasn’t the right word.

“How’d you do that?!” she asked as they fought their way through the literary morass.

“I didn’t,” Harry replied as he kicked some more books out of his path. “It was my wand.”

“How was that your wand?”

“I have no idea.”

Harry kicked a few broken trinkets aside and picked his bag of borrowed Muggle weapons back up, slinging it over his shoulder. He and Ginny made it about halfway over to where Neville and Luna were last seen when they spotted Luna crawling out from beneath a smoking clutter of newspapers. “Neville!” she called out.

“I’m here,” came his muffled reply. He was trapped beneath a stack of bookcases. “I can’t find my wand, have you seen it?”

Luna looked down at a floor covered in wooden pieces. “I might have,” she said.

“Hang on, Nev, we’ll get you out,” Harry told him.

“I’m all right,” Neville said stoutly. “Go on, I’ll catch up.”

He was right. Riddle couldn’t be allowed to get away. “Come on,” Harry said to Ginny, leaving Luna to dig Neville out the mess.

As they approached the door, Harry was encouraged by the amount of blood on the floor. Riddle must have been even more injured than he’d appeared. It wasn’t until they were right before the exit that he saw the white flesh that oozed out from beneath half of a solid oak desk. Nagini had been crushed to a pulp.

Harry felt the slightest tinge of relief, but that was all he allowed himself.

He and Ginny climbed over the remains of their trap and pursued their quarry into the school.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Dumbledore was dead. However, this hadn’t stopped him from keeping up with current matters.

He had set many plans in motion before his unfortunate demise and saw no reason his death should halt their progress. The threads of change he had woven continued to unspool. People, once understood, were largely predictable. Not that he was blind to chance or the vicissitudes of humanity. But, for the most part, things proceeded as he had foreseen.

Except, confoundingly, events surrounding Harry. The shape and speed of those events had spiralled far outside Dumbledore’s original design.

This was, oddly enough, exactly his plan.

In the first months following Scott Kharan’s arrival, Dumbledore had believed the man might be retrofitted into the existing framework. Harry had several key advantages in the coming conflict, but a Muggle (or Muggle-adjacent) bodyguard was a wildcard, something Tom would never account for. But as time had passed it had become apparent that Kharan was just as much a random element for Dumbledore as he would be for Riddle. Even _more_ of one, perhaps. Kharan was clearly making his own plans. More than that, his tutelage was changing Harry’s perceptions. Slowly, Dumbledore’s expectations for how Harry would react in any given situation became shakier, even obsolete.

Scott was crafty, manipulative. Smart. Far smarter, in fact, than Dumbledore’s initial assessment had allowed for. Scott had seemed like a boy at war with himself, sharp intelligence battling childish whims, deadly knowledge juxtaposed with teenage impulsiveness. Eventually, Dumbledore had realised that this was not the nature of the boy, or of the man, but instead a compromised version of both. He knew then that he could not account for an adult Kharan, a person he had met only briefly. Ergo, when it came to Scott Kharan, he could account for very little, indeed.

Clearly, his plans had required alteration.

If Dumbledore had remained alive and well, perhaps he might have used his influence to guide Harry and by extension, Scott. That had not come to pass, for obvious reasons. Instead, he recognised that his role was to put the right tools in the right hands. He would have to trust that they would be used effectively, and in the meantime ensure the Order did not collapse and leave Harry without even a distraction to count on.

He had wondered, from time to time, if Scott was merely a harbinger, the first swell of a greater wave. Even lacking details, the picture of Scott’s origins that had been intimated implied a vast power. A nation not of provinces, but of planets. Dumbledore could only speculate on the nature of the military leviathan which could have bred such a man.

And yet, an army had never materialised. The reasons were unknown, but obviously there were restrictions at work. He only hoped those reasons were rational and not bureaucratic. He would hate to think Harry was denied further support for budgetary reasons.

Overall, Dumbledore couldn’t honestly say he was all that enamoured with his laissez faire approach. But given his circumstances, it was the best he could do. Harry had gone dark after the Weasley wedding and Dumbledore had been left to piece together events thereafter through inference and what little Severus and the Order could tell him. Harry’s whereabout were frequently unclear and Dumbledore knew he couldn’t assume that Scott was always present. In fact, he suspected that Scott and his sister were frequently deployed as a distraction.

Still, Harry’s path across the UK was painted in corpses, a trail of violence ranging from mysterious disappearances to mass homicide to outright battles raging in the streets of wizarding Britain. Killing was not Harry’s way, an aspect of him that Dumbledore had respected and nurtured. However, Dumbledore understood that Scott was a soldier, and lethal. Regardless, it had been a bit shocking to discover just _how_ lethal. A few dead Death Eaters had been expected; a brutal guerrilla war had not been.

Dumbledore took some satisfaction in knowing Tom had not expected it, either.

It had been frustrating being so much in the dark. He had not anticipated so much of what had happened. He had certainly not expected Scott to suddenly appear in the school and beat Severus to a pulp.

Or for Tom Riddle to come limping through the door, face and hands lacerated, one arm clearly broken, and bruises beginning to blossom on his pale flesh.

“Rough night, Tom?” Dumbledore said mildly.

Riddle looked at Severus’ unconscious form, lip curling in contempt. Then he bent down and began rifling through the other man’s robes, extracting Severus’ wand.

Interesting. _Quite_ interesting.

“Not an ideal workaround, is it,” Dumbledore said conversationally. “Did poor Ollivander ever give you a definitive answer? I am curious.”

Riddle’s red eyes focused on the portrait with burning malevolence. “Curiosity is for the living,” he hissed.

“And yet you’ve exercised it so rarely. You only interrogate the world when it impedes you, and you always seek the wrong solutions.”

“Yes, use this opportunity to lecture me. You won’t have another.” Tom tucked Severus’ wand into his sleeve. “Your creation dies tonight.”

“ _My_ creation?” Dumbledore shook his head with a disbelieving smile. “Come now, Tom. Modesty does not suit you.”

“Nothing you can say will save him.”

“That’s true… if one assumes he needs saving. Harry hasn’t needed that from me in a long time. Perhaps he never did,” Dumbledore mused.

“It’s _over._ Wand or no, he can’t match me.”

“Of course he can. You’ve made sure of it.” Dumbledore observed his foe with a wry gaze. “You chose your enemy; you gave him his weapons, his experience, his motivation. Few people in this world could have been so efficient in engineering their own destruction. It’s honestly quite impressive. You’ve made almost an art of it.” Dumbledore tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Not that much of a surprise, perhaps. You were always my best student. And my least perceptive, when it mattered.”

“The second such words from a dead man.”

“Oh?”

“Another of yours, the Muggle soldier. Such depths I’ve driven you to… I must admit, I never believed you would stoop to hire a Muggle to murder my followers. You must be desperate…”

“One of us is, certainly. As for the soldier, he’s his own man.”

“Was. I killed him and that supposedly brilliant Mudblood that Potter is so fond of.”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Perhaps. But if you’ll forgive me, you’ve been known to make mistakes.”

At last, the rage lurking behind Riddle’s icy mask came to the forefront. He raised his pilfered wand and held it out towards Dumbledore’s portrait, teeth bared. For several long seconds he stayed that way, until his arm slowly lowered as he mastered his emotions.

“No…” Riddle said almost absently as he tucked the wand back into his sleeve. “No. You’re already dead.”

“Well, Tom,” Dumbledore said as he adjusted his glasses, “that would make two of us.”

 

***---~**~---***

 

The snow crunched beneath Ron’s feet as he ran at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It was still damn cold out, cold enough to bite at his throat and fingers. He barely felt it.

Hogwarts looked calm and still in the moonlight. It meant nothing. Anything could be happening in there. But at least it wasn’t burning to the ground, which he thought made it safe to assume the majority of people inside weren’t currently fighting.

He couldn’t say the same about Hogsmeade. There was smoke above the town, draped like gossamer silver in front of the moon. The tinny crack of distant gunfire echoed across the wide field. No question where Scott was at.

Ron needed to find Harry.

Sophie was at the perimeter, opening the way. Ron climbed over the wall and waited, but she and Lila didn’t follow. His heart sank a little at knowing he’d be going it alone, but he understood. Their business was elsewhere. He wished them luck.

The school loomed just ahead. Voldemort might already be inside, which… fuck. The only silver lining here was that Hermione was nowhere near this bloody mess. He assumed the usual ways into the school were open. If Harry and the others were still in the Room of Requirement, his best bet would be to take the stairs by the entrance hall straight into the upper levels and go from there.

He crossed the open grounds, hoping no one was looking out the windows. There shouldn’t be anyone evil about save for You-Know-Who himself, but he knew better than to count on everything going according to plan. For all he knew there was another bloody Death Eater army awaiting his arrival.

As he ran up the stairs to a side door he heard what sounded like a long, distant string of firecrackers pulse hollowly across the plain. He knew Lila was opening up on some poor sod. He’d been around a few loud Muggle whatsits thanks to some overly violent Kharadjai, but that beast of Lila’s took the cake.

More gunfire, an extended staccato cadence of pops. Ron wasn’t homicidal by nature, but it had been one long night in a long fucking year. He hoped Scott’s crew killed all those bastards.

The halls of Hogwarts were quiet, at least where he was. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign. Every step upwards without someone trying to curse him set his jaw a little tighter. Was it a trap? That would be just his sodding luck.

When he finally reached the Room, the hall was as still as all the others. He reckoned he was early until his saw the red streaks on the flagstones. Blood. _Shit._

He readied his wand, took a deep, shaky breath, thought _I need a place to hide something_ , and charged inside.

He almost immediately tripped on a pile of rubbish. He skidded to a halt, barking his shins on half a desk. His trainers were in something mushy and horrible; it took him a moment to realise it was a crushed snake. So that was something, at least. But the Room looked like a tornado had hit it, and that couldn’t be a good sign. Noise emanated from his right, and he pointed his wand that way.

“Ron!” It was Neville, looking battered. He and Luna were clambering out of another pile of wreckage.

Ron let out his breath. “Bloody hell, I nearly cursed you. Where’s Harry and Gin?”

“Going after him.” Neville finally freed his legs from a smashed bookcase and staggered to the door with Luna’s help. “Come on, we can still catch up.”

So they were about to chase after Riddle, then. Probably the worst idea he’d ever been party to; and that was a long and prestigious list. “All right,” he heard himself say.

Damn. Well, here went nothing.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Scott set the barrel of his rifle against the edge of the wall, aimed, and squeezed. His shot shattered the brick at the corner of the house down the alleyway and the Death Eater behind it fell back. It might have been a miss, but he didn’t think so. The reaction was too fast to have been in the wake of a close call.

“Reloading,” he said, hitting the magazine release.

A long burst of fire came from Lila’s side of their position. Then another as she raked the spot she had herded her contact into. Scott couldn’t see what was happening; he just knew the drill.

“Get him?” he asked as he chambered a new round.

“Not sure.” Lila picked up her M249 and sat back against the wall. “Strauss?”

Sophie was in an observation position on the roof behind them. “…No. I see him at the green house, first floor.” Two loud clacks as she fired her suppressed MP5. “Moving east, seventy-five.”

Lila popped back up and fired again, shredding the side of the green house at seventy-five meters. Scott leaned back out around his side, scanning for movement.

They were in a decent position on the far end of town, opposite the train station. There were two houses connected by a stone wall with the last house on the west side of Hogsmeade to their backs, the two-storey on which Sophie was perched. To the north and south was the blank white field, making any flanking attempts an exercise in futility. Of course, that worked both ways.

Scott initially had an advantage after he ambushed the Death Eaters and killed at least some of their leadership. He’d been picking them off as they panicked out by the burning tree, but it hadn’t taken too long for them to flee back into town regardless of the losses they were taking, instinctually understanding that their only hope was to reach the cover of the houses. After that he had fought a slow retreat to his current position (he’d set off some kind of town-wide alarm in the process, which had actually aided him with the additional confusion); he’d killed a few more of them but their numbers had made it necessary to continually fall back or risk being surrounded. He had just run out of room to run when Sophie and Lila had come barrelling across the field in a flanking charge. The fighting had been fierce for about five minutes as the Kharadjai women forced their way to Scott’s position through sheer firepower and surprise.

Things had since calmed into a steady back and forth, something close to a stalemate. The Death Eaters had the numbers, but clearly no idea how to take a fixed position covered by Muggle guns. The Kharadjai couldn’t push without being enveloped. Neither side could flank. Scott figured that, eventually, the enemy would decide to just level everything on the Kharadjai end of town. All bets were off in that case.

He was concerned about his own ability to keep fighting. He was weak. He could feel his connection to the shape wavering, threatening to tinge his vision. Between getting the shit kicked, punched and blown out of him at the Dursleys’ and Riddle damn near killing him, he felt like his bones were turning to lead. He’d been awake and intermittently fighting for almost twenty-four hours and every injury had been adding up. He didn’t have much left to give. The adrenaline could only carry him so far.

He could keep going. He knew he could because he’d done it before and done it in even worse shape. But he also knew that if he was pushed too much further, his body was liable to quit on him. He could heal another bad hit; maybe two. After that, he couldn’t count on it.

Lila and Sophie hadn’t said anything, but he was sure they’d noticed.

His attention was caught by a glint around the edge of a building about thirty meters down the alley. Someone was using a mirror to look around the corner at his position.

“We got a regular fuckin’ MacGyver out there,” Scott said. He put a bullet through the mirror out of sheer spite, relishing the howl of pain that followed.

Another deadly rattle from Lila cut through the night air. A few spells flew overhead in a feeble response, one clipping the wall with a bang. “Target is struck,” Lila reported, sinking back down.

“Still moving, though,” Sophie replied. Three more sharp clicks from the roof.

Scott took a moment to lean against the cold stone, pressing his forehead to it. The cold bit at his head, a slight shock to his system. It helped a little.

“Movement, east,” Sophie said.

Scott blinked hard and set himself back at the edge. “I’m clear.”

“Same,” Lila replied.

“Mass movement. They’re shifting, east two hundred.” Sophie paused. “Oh no, Scott, I think they’re sending people to the school.”

He’d been afraid of that. The Death Eaters were without leadership thanks to Scott’s ambush, and no doubt any queries sent Malfoy Manor’s way were going unanswered. By this point anyone who could reinforce probably already had. But they knew that Snape was nearby, along with (as far as they knew) the Carrows. They couldn’t Apparate into Hogwarts and the school was only on the Floo network sporadically. It looked like someone had decided the best course of action was to kick the ball up the chain of command.

“How many?” he asked.

“I count at least five,” she said. “They’re gathering by the road out of town. I don’t know if all of them are leaving, though.”

Even one would be too many. Harry had enough on his plate with Riddle to face, he didn’t need Death Eaters trying to hex him in the back.

Scott was on the wrong side of the town. He’d known that when he’d been falling back, but the Death Eaters had all flooded into the east side of the village and Scott had been alone. There hadn’t been much choice.

“What’s the play?” Lila said quietly.

If Hogsmeade hadn’t been situated in the middle of a field as flat as a damn pancake, there would have been a lot of possible moves. Scott could still think of a few, but he could only think of one that wasn’t likely to end with all of them either dead, captured, or pinned down.

There was always a cold logic to war. People were resources, and resources had to be used efficiently. In this case, he had two intact resources and one damaged resource. Therefore, the smart move was to sacrifice the damaged resource to preserve the other two, then use them against the enemy elsewhere. Strategy 101. Delay, distract, escape.

Scott began to root through one of the duffel bags, stuffing munitions into his pockets. “Sophie, which side of town are they shifting from?”

“South, mostly. There’s still sentries in the two-storey brick at south-east forty,” she said.

“I’m going to hit it. We flash and smoke the road, north and south alleyways. You two run the south field, fast as you can make it. Cut them off at the gate.”

The grim expression on Lila’s face made it clear she had anticipated the orders. She changed the box magazine on her weapon, not meeting Scott’s eyes.

Sophie leapt down from the roof. Her emerald gaze was laden with worry. “You be careful,” she said thickly.

Scott smiled. “Who, me?”

His eyes widened in surprise when she grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him on the cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. “You _be careful,”_ she reiterated, backing away. She hurried over to a position at the edge of the southern house, tensing to run with a smoke grenade in one hand.

Lila stood up and chambered a round with a pull of the heavy bolt. “Love you, Scott,” she said.

“Love you too, Lil.” Scott peered over the wall. “Move in ten.”

The grenades went over the wall, filling the night with thunderous bangs, blinding flashes and thick clouds of smoke. Lila and Sophie shot off into the night, running full tilt across the moonlit field.

Scott vaulted the wall. Forty meters, straight ahead. He sped through the smoke and then crashed through a door, latch splintering inward. Time seemed to crawl.

First target: Man, turning from the window. Two shots to the chest. Second target: man in the kitchen doorway. First shot to the throat, too high. Three more, descending: chest, belly, groin. Third target: Woman walking down stairwell. Block Killing Curse, return fire: left knee, she fell on the floor. Two shots, left temple. Fourth target: unseen assailant, outside window. Return fire, effect unknown. Fifth and sixth targets: men entering back door. Five shots, traversed left to right. Shoulder, chest, jaw, front man — left eye, forehead, rear man. Seventh target: unseen assailant, second-story window, fifteen meters across street. Return fire, effect unknown. Eighth target: man in alley behind house, through kitchen window. Three rounds, blocked by Shield Charm. Six more, charm broken on fourth, two rounds impact chest. Ninth target: man in alley, through back door. Three shots. Target staggered out of line of sight, effect unknown. Tenth target: man entering front door. Magazine empty. Charge him, block indeterminate curse. Rotate wand arm, break elbow inward. Kick to left knee, leg collapsed; stomp joint, shatter patella, femur. Target incapacitated. Knock over, collapse skull against— no, eleventh target, twelfth, spells through door—

Something slammed into his chest and knocked him into the wall. He hit the floor and rolled away, staggering to his feet and scrambling up the stairs as Blasting Curses tore the lower level of the house apart around him. He was struggling to breathe. The upper floor was thankfully empty, and he took a moment to catch his breath.

Whoever knocked him one might have done him a favour. He’d been in a bad zone, unthinking, acting on instinct. He hadn’t realised how fatigued he really was until he had to think in the fractions of a second available in a firefight. He pressed his fingers to his eyes, hard. He was lucky to not already be dead, running on autopilot like that.

He couldn’t feel all of the damage, but the biggest problems were apparent enough: his collarbone was broken, his right arm was so full of jagged splinters that it was more wood than flesh and something had gouged a good chunk out of his left calf. The impact burns and bruises on his chest he’d leave, along with a deep cut across his right thigh. He’d taken so much shrapnel damage that trying to fix it all would be an exercise in futility, not that he had the time or the effort to spare.

He shunted the energy to his arm first and clenched his teeth as the pain built and exploded. When the healing was finished, he felt lightheaded to a dangerous degree. Sweat poured down his face and back despite the cold. He was only a third of the way done. He could hear voices outside. The collarbone was faster and not too bad, but when he finished repairing his calf there was a darkness at the edges of his vision that was threatening to take over.

Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that he probably didn’t have another heal left in him.

Focus. Deep breath, and focus. Push down the pain. As long as they were still trying to kill him, Lila and Sophie weren’t taking heavy fire.

Something creaked in the next room, like a loose floorboard being stepped on.

…He was not alone.

He whirled around, reaching for a handgun as he felt the vibrations of an approach. It wasn’t everyday someone got the drop on him and— well, goddammit, this dude was already in arm’s reach. How about that.

Someone huge barrelled into Scott. He was carried backwards and felt a window break beneath his back. A short fall — then, he crashed into another roof, skidding across slate tiles as they broke and slid with him. He tried to grab hold of something and stay on the high ground, but there wasn’t anything to grab and his attacker was still wrapped around him. They fell again. Scott had the brief impression of snow and shingles and then they hurtled to the ground.

He was back on his feet almost immediately, but it still wasn’t fast enough. He took a hard punch to the ribs and something sharp nearly slashed his throat, cutting a thin red line as he leaned away. He struck back: solar plexus, kneecap, jab at the groin. His opponent was just taking it, which was highly unusual outside of fighting another Kharadjai. It meant two unfortunate things: he was very weak, and his opponent was very tough.

He ducked beneath another blow and backpedalled, trying to create some space with a handful of snow thrown in his assailant’s face. He needed to shoot this fucker but was being pressed so hard that he couldn’t spare a hand to do it. He caught a brief glimpse of ragged hair and sharpened teeth and immediately recognized his attacker. It was Greyback, that odd goon who had been at the tower. It looked like he knew a thing or two about fighting. He lacked finesse, though it didn’t really matter when Scott was already reeling.

Less than fifteen seconds. Scott figured he had less than fifteen seconds to turn this around before Greyback did too much damage for Scott to come back from. There were still an unknown number of Death Eaters in Hogsmeade and he was never going to escape if he couldn’t move. He tried to hook a finger through Greyback’s eye and only managed to scratch it, not blind the bastard.

He was pretty sure he’d dislocated Greyback’s knee, broken a couple ribs and snapped at least four of the werewolf’s fingers, but it just didn’t seem to _matter._ Scott was losing. His muscles were slackening, the pain was getting worse and sapping what was left of his strength. Twenty-four hours ago, he would have taken this asshole apart. He felt a dim frustration somewhere beneath all the pain as Greyback absorbed all the punishment he could deliver and dealt plenty of his own.

The end came a little sooner than he’d expected.

He felt the hit, felt the nails constrict and sink into his heart. Felt it a lot more than he wanted to. He groaned with the agony of it, not quite able to summon a scream. Then the cold began to set in, and he welcomed the icy numbness of shock. All the vigour which flowed from the organ faded and his body surrendered, kept striving only by the electric hum of the shape.

Too many hours, too much damage. He was burning out, he was flaring. Twice as bright, half as long.

Greyback smiled, revealing sharpened yellow teeth, and twisted his grip. Scott paled further and almost collapsed. “That's the end, there, boy,” he growled. “Feel it? You're finished.”

Scott reached out and wrapped his hands around Greyback's wrist.

Greyback laughed, releasing a burst of fetid breath. “Still got a good grip! I don't say this often, but I'm impressed. You're a wild one, you are, a real terror. Don't feel bad, though; you just met the bigger beast.”

Scott pushed himself forward the slightest bit on Greyback's arm, impaling himself further as he clamped his hands on the other man's shoulders.

The werewolf shook his head in admiring disbelief. “Fuckin’ hell, look at you go! Never seen a man take that much punishment and still move... Fine by me, though, I like my meat lively. Can you talk?”

“You can eat my dick first,” Scott rasped.

“Bloody hell, that’s something. Wish my lads could see this. Too bad you killed 'em.” Greyback leaned in a little closer. “So, I've always wanted to know: are you afraid to get eaten? Or are you just afraid to die?”

“Nah,” Scott coughed.

He surged forward and clasped his right arm around Greyback, pulling him into an embrace. Greyback started to struggle, but it wasn't any use. Scott had him in a hold like steel. The werewolf howled and bit Scott's ear, nearly chewing it off. Scott barely felt it.

Greyback's efforts to free himself stopped when there came a metallic clack, followed by the pinging of an undone spring. A circular pin dropped to the ground, ringing tinny across the floor. Scott slid the black cylinder between their chests.

He dropped his head and pressed his cheek to the werewolf's straining shoulder, holding the other man like he would a loved one. “Are you?”

 

***---~**~---***

 

The halls of Hogwarts were as gloomy as ever deep within the windowless interior. Not the easiest place to track someone, but Harry had advantages. The Map, for one. And the school was on his side.

“He went that way!” a painting of a nun told him, pointing in right the direction.

“You get that rotter, lad!” a corpulent laird roared as Harry and Ginny sped past.

Other instructions and words of encouragement followed wherever he went. Sir Cadogan charged alongside Harry and Ginny for an entire hallway, bellowing about blood and honour. News, as always, travelled fast along the walls of Hogwarts.

Harry didn’t have much time to think about what exactly had happened back in the Room. He was wondering, though, if his wand had another of those balls of light in it. He had the suspicion that Riddle was off looking for another wand and reckoned the Dark Lord was likely enough to find one in a school for magic. Whatever Harry’s wand had done back there, he needed more of it.

They reached an intersection and paused, unsure of their next move. Harry looked to a large painting of Venetian waterways, where a gondolier perched on the back of his boat. The gondolier was looking directly at Harry. Then, slowly, his eyes slid over to the corner to the left, and then back to Harry.

Harry immediately pressed himself to the wall, quieting his breathing.

Ginny hadn’t seen. “W—”

He pressed a hand over her mouth and jerked his head towards the corner. Her eyes widened with understanding. Harry silently counted to five.

Together they leapt around the corner. Riddle was there, emerging from the entrance to the Headmaster’s office. The second Harry raised his wand another solid ball of light emerged from it and shot down the hall.

 _“NO!”_ Riddle snarled. A suit of armour came to life and threw itself in the way, exploding on impact.

The next thing Harry knew five other suits of armour were charging him. “REDUCTO!” he shouted, blasting them to bits. Ginny did the same and soon there were smoking pieces of metal bouncing off the walls and clattering across the floor.

Riddle was limping away, reaching back briefly to almost lazily counter a hex that Ginny sent at his retreating form. A second later, lights exploded at that end of the hall. Harry realised that his other friends had caught up. He ran towards them, knowing that whatever his wand was doing could very well be the difference between life and death for all involved.

Neville, Luna and Ron were all casting furiously. Riddle was shaking off the assault like a dog shaking off water, blocking and countering. He whipped his wand in a lateral motion and the floor seemed to come undone beneath them. They fell into the hall below; Harry barely caught himself on the edge of the wall and grabbed Ginny’s sleeve to keep her from tumbling.

Riddle flew upwards and then floated down the nearby staircase into the bottom levels.

“Is everyone alive?” Harry shouted into the cloud of dust choking the hall.

“For now,” Ron retorted from somewhere in the rubble below. “We’re alright, we’ll meet you downstairs!”

Ginny grabbed Harry’s arm. “The other stair will be faster, come on!”

As they ran it occurred to Harry that despite being badly injured and using a wand that wasn’t his, Riddle was still seemingly impossible to beat. If Harry could destroy his wand again, then maybe they’d have a chance. Through numbers alone, if nothing else.

Though Harry still wasn’t sure if anyone but him could actually kill Riddle. The others might easily be risking their lives against someone they could never beat. And yet, without them, Harry would have no real chance at all.

He and Ginny sped down the stairs and came out near the clocktower courtyard. Riddle would be somewhere by the Great Hall, assuming he was still moving at the same hobbled speed. As they ran past the unbroken snow Harry thought he could hear distant gunshots in the night air.

They stacked up against the door to the interior, just like Scott had taught them. Harry grabbed the handle and opened it as Ginny covered. It was clear, and they ran inside.

Someone came around the next corner. Harry nearly blasted them before his brain caught up and he realised it was McGonagall, hurrying along with Flitwick.

“Harry!” Professor McGonagall gasped, shocked to see him. “What are you doing here? We heard—”

“Sorry, Professor, no time,” Harry said briskly, stepping around her. “Riddle is in the school. Keep everyone in their rooms!” he shouted over his shoulder as he and Ginny kept running.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Hermione knew she was being reckless. She _knew_ that. She wasn’t Harry. But she could only sit by herself in Grimmauld Place with a hundred million horrible scenarios flashing through her mind for so long. Really, how much of that was she supposed to take?

Her ankle was now numb more than anything, but it still didn’t work quite right. She limped her way through the snow, the edge of Hogwarts just ahead. She couldn’t sneak into the school the usual way, not without one of the Kharadjai to handle the barrier. Instead, she was hoping the gate was open and unguarded. If not… well, she’d think of something.

Gunfire was emanating sporadically from Hogsmeade. She had considered sending her Patronus out that way to ask for help, but from the sound of it the Kharadjai were in the middle of a fight. She paused, hidden in the shadows at the rim of the forest. She could reinforce them, use one of the brooms in her handbag along with a Disillusionment Charm. If course, given her mobility she might be more of a hindrance than a help…

The question became moot a handful of seconds later when the town suddenly erupted in a firestorm of gunshots, cutting through the clear night. Moments later Hermione spotted two figures sprinting across the field, moving too fast to be Death Eaters. A few spells flew out in their direction, but the sounds of battle continued to emanate from the village.

Hermione quickly considered how to draw their attention without also drawing their fire. Deciding her Patronus was the best way to avoid getting shot, she sent it shooting out across the field as she hunkered down in the snow. Watching the two people dashing towards her, she also saw a group leaving the village, heading along the road towards the castle. The enemy, no doubt.

Lila arrived first, halting her momentum with a sideways skid through the snow, kicking up an impressive plume. “You shouldn’t be out here,” were her terse first words.

Probably not, but Hermione was determined to be of use. “Leave me behind if you have to, but I can still cast.”

Lila looked no happier to have a crippled Prime present but said nothing further. Sophie came streaking in a couple seconds later, her stride much shorter than Lila’s. “Oh, Hermione,” she sighed.

Hermione bristled slightly. “I can’t just sit around whilst—”

“Disillusion us,” Lila ordered.

Hermione quickly complied, rapping both of them on the head and then herself. Lila bent forward and motioned for Hermione to climb on her back; nothing Hermione wasn’t used to at this point, though she still wasn’t looking forward to another extended piggyback ride.

“We’re ambushing them at the gate,” Lila said as they started running that way.

Hermione understood the importance of keeping the school as clear as possible. When they reached the gate, she settled into the snow next to Lila and prepared block any incoming spells. Lila and Sophie wouldn’t need any assistance when it came to the attacking.

The group of Death Eaters came hurrying up the road. They kept looking towards the edge of the forest, having no doubt seen Lila and Sophie’s flight across the field. It seemed as if they had lost the two women in the shadow of the forest, though, and hadn’t been able to spot them repositioning.

Lila put the stock of her weapon to her shoulder, bipod sinking two neat holes into the snow. “…Fire.”

As the first line of bullets cut down the leading Death Eaters, Hermione held her wand at the ready and ignored the building ache in her ears, despite her urge to cover them.

There was no time for weakness. Not tonight.

 

***---~**~---***

 

Harry was breathing hard by the time they were close to the Hall. He’d underestimated the sapping weight of the weapons he had in his purloined black duffel bag. Not that he was going to leave them behind.

Just ahead, Sir Cadogan came rampaging into a still life, sending pears and apples everywhere. “WHAT HO!” he bellowed, gaining their attention. “The blackguard flees for the Front Hall! Onward, stalwart soldiers! _Excelsior!!!”_

Harry found himself running headfirst into yet another brief encounter. Ron and the others had taken the quicker stairwell down to the Entrance Hall and the room was already alight with spells. Riddle was countering the barrage without much effort; he was seconds away from gaining the full advantage when Harry’s wand lit yet again and once more Riddle was driven away, red eyes glaring with hatred as he dodged the mysterious spell and retreated up another staircase, filling the Hall behind him with choking black smoke.

Harry could see where Riddle was going from his position above the smoke, still at the edge of the stairs. “Ron?” he shouted. “Anyone?”

“Here,” Ron said, coughing somewhere to the left. “Can’t see! And my fucking leg’s shot, after that last— just go, go on!”

The lack of response from Neville and Luna was worrying, but there wasn’t any time to think about it. Harry and Ginny raced through the miasma with their eyes watering, emerging from the smoke with rasping coughs echoing in unison.

“He’s got to be tiring,” Ginny choked out, her voice carrying a desperate edge.

Harry knew how she felt. Because if Riddle wasn’t tiring, they certainly were. One party was badly wounded and the other was badly inexperienced, at least by comparison. Their chase was slowly turning into a battle of attrition.

They followed Riddle through the maze of Hogwarts. Every time they tried to get closer, he held them off with deadly wandwork; every time he tried to limp away, they were faster. They had lost Ron and the others back in the smoke and had yet to encounter them again.

Harry pressed himself to the wall, Ginny at his side. They had doubled back and were above the Entrance Hall, the air noticeably colder near the big double doors. Just down the hall were the stairs to the front entrance. Riddle was somewhere near them, possibly in the small antechamber off to the right. Harry blindly stuck his wand out around the edge of the wall, hoping it would do whatever it was it had been doing. It did, but farther up ahead he heard the crash as it collided with something.

Riddle must have to decided to take a breather. His words drifted down the darkened hall. “Can’t you see this is useless, Potter?” he sneered. His voice, however, was weaker than usual, short of breath and reedy with pain.

“You’re not getting away,” Harry told him. “You might as well stay and fight.”

“Careful what you ask for, boy. I may yet decide that killing you is worth the trouble.”

“Yeah? So why don’t you?” Harry’s fatigue was slowly washed away by fury. “They’re all gone. You’ve got no Horcruxes left. It’s just you and me.”

A short silence followed. Harry smiled grimly in the dim light, knowing his opponent was shaken to the core.

Riddle rallied quickly enough. “If it’s a fair fight you want, then you can have it. No more tricks. Wand against wand. I’ll grant you the death you deserve.”

Harry thought, then, about the truth. About choices and destiny, about cold snow below colder words. The truth: that he, Harry, was one light in an ocean that had no beginning and no end. It was perpetual. Wheels within wheels, strings all tied in strange, spacious harmony. He thought of that wide bright dark above and the ceaseless turning of a shape that he could not see or touch but that he believed — truly believed — was real, the engine of reality pushing him along the path.

None of it had anything to do with ‘fair’. Nothing was about what anyone deserved.

“There’s no such thing as a fair fight.” Harry dug down into the black bag and pulled out a flashbang. “So just get over yourself.”

He threw the flashbang around the corner. The detonation was so loud in the confines of the stone walls that it made his teeth ache. Ginny had seen the throw and was right behind him when he charged around the corner.

It was dark in the hall, but through the light from the windows he could see Riddle on the ground. He raised his wand and the light shot out for the last time. Still blind on the floor, Riddle managed to cast a spell just before the light hit. The wall to Harry’s left exploded and everything went black.

He regained his senses with his ears ringing. Something hot streaked down his face and he knew instinctively that it was blood. He blinked, refocussing. The hallway was a mess of debris, dust filling the air.

Riddle was no more than four feet away, still on the floor. Blood was streaming from his flat, snakelike nostrils and from his ears. He was trying to stagger to his feet, rocking back and forth with all the balance of a toddler. Harry could see blood soaking the front of Riddle’s robes: the tyrant’s wand hand was cradled to his chest, mangled after Snape’s wand exploded.

Harry raised his own wand, only to discover that it had been snapped in two. He stared as it fell from his broken fingers.

Riddle saw. His teeth bared in vicious triumph. “You’re—”

Harry threw himself forward and sank the jagged end of his wand into Riddle’s neck. It didn’t penetrate far but Riddle howled in agony. A second later, Harry felt himself flying backwards. He landed hard on the jagged pieces of the wall with a shout as his back was lacerated through his clothes.

Wandless magic. Harry never had managed to master it.

“I’ve never done this before,” Riddle said with the thick-tongued speech of the deafened. He looked barely able to stay upright. “I’m glad you’re the first.” He couldn’t raise his hand; his arm was broken. He held it at his waist and opened his palm towards Harry. _“AVADA KEDAVRA—”_

 _I tried_ , Harry thought.

Something rammed into his shoulder, knocking him aside. There was a flash of green light, and then silence.

Harry sat up, heart pounding.

Ginny lay still where he had sat a moment before.

His heart stopped. His mind was consumed by an endless, soundless scream.

Riddle stood over them, his entire body shaking with helpless rage. “Again. How could this… How many women do you have ready to die for you, Potter? A dozen? A hundred?”

Ginny was dead. Harry died with her, by inches.

Riddle was still talking. “This changes _nothing._ **_I will find a way.”_** A long, shuddering breath. “I’ll kill everyone else you love, if I must. You should have faced me alone. You…” He trailed off, swaying forward, long strings of blood and mucus wiggling from his mouth.

Was it possible to keep breathing when your heart had turned to stone?

Riddle leaned back upright, his eyes glassy. His tongue pushed a bloody wad of phlegm past his lips; it fell and smacked wetly against the flagstones. “This is not goodbye, Harry Potter,” he mumbled thickly. He turned and began to limp towards the stairs.

Harry reached into the duffel bag, withdrew Sirius’ shotgun, and fired.

The first shot caught Riddle in the left shoulder, knocking him forward. The second shot tore through his lower back. He fell down the stairs, out of sight.

Harry let the gun drop into his lap. Numbly, he tried to snap it open using his wrist. His broken hand wasn’t cooperating.

Ginny coughed.

Two shells went tumbling to the floor, instantly forgotten. _“Gin?”_

She sat up, still coughing. “That was weird,” she said vaguely. Her eyes widened as she regained her bearings. “Shit, where is he?”

Harry pulled her into tight, one-armed hug, burying his face in her hair. The relief that flooded him was so intense he could barely breathe. “Ginny… Ginny, _how_ , I saw—”

“In a minute,” she said impatiently, trying to pull out of his death grip. “Harry, he can’t get away!”

He was trembling. Shock, maybe. He vaguely recalled Sophie or someone using that word before. But Ginny was right. “I hit him. I swear I did.”

Seeing his broken wand, she snatched the shells off the floor and slotted them into the chambers for him. “Then let’s finish it.”

When they peered down the stairs, Riddle wasn’t there. Blood was splashed all over the steps, a considerable amount. The spatters continued across the empty Hall and out the doors, one of which was opened slightly.

They followed. Ginny was limping now, shrapnel imbedded in her leg. Harry’s ears were still ringing, and his hand was beginning to ache abominably. Luckily, Riddle was in even worse shape than they were.

They stepped out into the freezing night with their weapons up and at the ready, expecting a counterattack. None came. Harry’s breath fogged in white billows as he scanned the grounds, searching for his enemy.

Only a few yards ahead was the black outline of a body, lying prone in the snow.

Together, they approached.

Tom Marvolo Riddle lay peacefully in the frost, eyes closed beneath the clear night sky. One hand, ruined, lay at his side. The other was fisted in his robes over his stomach. His clothing and the snow beneath him were stained deep red in the moonlight, almost black. They steamed gently as the last remnants of his life released their fading warmth.

Harry hadn’t even realised that he’d sunk to his knees until he felt Ginny do the same behind him, her arms encircling his shoulders. The great weight upon him began to lift and he could not comprehend its absence.

Ginny’s cold little hand brushed through his hair as she held him.

He felt the end.

“Happy Christmas, Harry,” she said.


End file.
